Whale: SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023

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The images that he conjures travel through several life-spans of, and trajectories of, the often cataclysmic changes that have rocked the Korean peninsula, bifurcated by the Communist North and the American flavoured South with its reliance on the capitalist model.

This same sensation animates Rosalind Harvey’s delicate but enthrallingly tense translation of Guadalupe Nettel’s fourth novel: an exploration of maternity, loss and refusal.Brimming with surprises and wicked humor, Whale is an adventure-satire of epic proportions by one of the most original voices in South Korea. I want to visit Korea even more now after reading this and had a strong desire to cook fish when reading! Central to the story, set in Martinique, is adopted orphan Pascal, a beautiful daydreamer who is believed to be a new saviour: “Our Father perhaps had two sons.

Children must have broken the bricks left behind in the brickyard, and now only shards were strewn about.

Whether you’re new to the book or have read it and would like to explore it more deeply, here is our comprehensive guide, featuring insights from critics, our judges and the book’s author and translator, as well as discussion points and suggestions for further reading. Of course, we tend to mock messiahs, activists who present themselves as prophets - look at Greta Thunberg!

Brimming with surprises and wicked humour, Cheon Myeong-kwan's novel Whale is an adventure satire of epic proportions by one of international literature’s most original voices. Maryse Condé reminds us of the virtue of utopias: if we are not able to dream of a better world, we will not find the means to make it happen. Replete with unexpected surprises and a wicked sense of humor,Whaleis a riveting, rollicking, combination of adventure and satire of epic saga proportions by arguably one of the most original literary talents in international literature.

Peake, who channelled his experiences as a child fleeing the collapse of Chinese life before the tsunami of Mao Tse-tung, into the first three parts of his unfinished series of novels Gormenghast, once wrote: “As I see it, life is an effort to grip before they slip through one’s fingers into oblivion, the startling or the ghastly or the blindingly exquisite fish of the imagination before they whip away on the endless current and are lost forever in oblivion’s black ocean. Being so wildly busy, not everything is covered in depth (Otoo’s heart seems to be with the 19th-century Ada), but the novel is fast-moving and never dull, all in the service of highlighting the injustices faced by women through history, and acknowledging humans as one people rather than different categories.

Later in the novel, surprising events occur which entirely change the tone, in such a way that feels like a commentary on society's expectations of men and women, which is a theme i always love reading about. How would you summarise Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey, in a sentence to encourage readers to pick it up? The characters are so well formed that they feel real and I found myself genuinely feeling for them, and wanting good things to happen to them.Blending betrayals worthy of film noir with harrowing stories of corruption and abuses of power,Whaleshifts wildly in tone but is never less than compelling. When I start a translation I often read books that will get me in the right headspace and mood, which helps me land on the voice. It is a book full of wisdom and love, written by an experienced author, who puts all her storytelling talent to good use. We use cookies to collect and analyse information on site performance and usage, and to enhance and customise content.