Lit in Translation

Mater 2-10

철도원 삼대 · Cheoldowon samdae

Hwang Sok-yong (황석영, born 1943)

Translated by Sora Kim-Russell, Youngjae Josephine Bae

English editions

In English

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On top of a power-station chimney the height of a sixteen-storey block, the sacked factory hand Jin-o holds out in protest. Through freezing nights he names five plastic bottles for people now dead, among them his great-grandmother, his grandmother and former comrades, and speaks with them. Their voices bring back his forebears: Baek-man, who loved locomotives on sight and worked in the railway repair shops; his son Il-cheol, one of the few Koreans to drive engines under Japanese rule; and Il-cheol's brother I-cheol, who lost his job and turned to labour organising and the independence struggle. Women keep the family going, above all Geum-i, whose glance reveals what has happened to people and what will.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form
Novel
Length
620 pages in the original
Genres
Historical, Family, Politics (assigned by AI)
Set in
South Korea
First published
2020 by Changbi
Author's age
77 when first published
ISBN

9788936434434 (original)

9781913348953 (Scribe UK, United Kingdom)

9781957363318 (Scribe US, United States)

9781917189064 (Scribe UK, United Kingdom)

9781957363998 (Scribe US, United States)