Halmae (Grandmother)
Korean Title: 할매
Author: Hwang Sok-yong
Publisher: Changbi
ISBN: 9788936439880
Hardcover | 224 pages | 128 * 188 mm (B6) | 355 g
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| >>>This book is written in Korean. |
About This Book
Often described as the highest peak of Korean literature, Hwang Sok-yong - recipient of the Manhae Literary Prize, the Daesan Literary Award, and the Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature - returns with his new novel Halmae (Grandmother). This marks his first work in five years since At Dusk (Three Generations of the Railroad Workers, Changbi, 2020), which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and captivated readers around the world. Following his previous novel’s powerful portrayal of modern Korean labor history, Hwang now expands the horizon of his storytelling to encompass deep time and life beyond the human, reaching a new artistic height that embraces the vitality of the planet itself.
The novel unfolds around "Halmae," a hackberry tree that has endured for six hundred years, its story beginning with the death of a single bird. Centered on this ancient tree, the narrative weaves together the painful history of the land and the lives of its people on an epic scale. Conveying the profound insight that humans and nature, life and death, cannot exist apart - and that all beings circulate within a vast web of interconnection - the novel poses weighty yet beautiful questions about the origins of existence for those living in an age of climate crisis and ecological destruction.
Hwang Sok-yong’s signature forceful prose and sweeping narrative carry readers effortlessly across time and space, plunging them into vividly alive moments of turbulent history. Beyond the tragedies of the Korean Peninsula, the novel captures a world of astonishing breadth - from the flutter of an unnamed insect’s wings to the breathing of tidal flats - revealing just how expansive the world of fiction can be.
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