At Dusk:
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2019
Translated by Sora Kim-Russell
Overview
Facing a corruption investigation, and in the twilight of his life, a wealthy man begins to re-examine all.
Park Minwoo is, by every measure, a success story. Born into poverty in a miserable neighborhood of Seoul, he has ridden the wave of development in a rapidly modernizing society. Now the director of a large architectural firm, his hard work and ambition have brought him triumph and satisfaction. But when his company is investigated for corruption, he’s forced to reconsider his role in the transformation of his country.
At the same time, he receives an unexpected message from an old friend, Cha Soona, a woman that he had once loved, and then betrayed. As memories return unbidden, Minwoo recalls a world he thought had been left behind—a world he now understands that he has helped to destroy.
From one of Korea's most renowned and respected authors, At Dusk is a gentle yet urgent tale about the things, and the people, that we abandon in our never-ending quest to move forward.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Paperback
- 5.1in x 7.8in
- 192 pages
- 9781947534667
- USD$17.00
- 16 July 2019
Categories
Awards
- Winner of the 2018 Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature
- Longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize
- Longlisted for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize
- Longlisted for the 2020 National Translation Awards in Prose
Praise
“A stirring and quietly moving novel … a sharply perceptive account of the struggle to maintain body and soul, roughly speaking, in the decades before Chun dooh-hwan's military coup of 1980.” FIVE STARS
“Here [Sok-yong] scrutinizes the quiet disconnect of contemporary relationships through the life of a successful, sixty–something Seoul architect … A piercing modern tale about all we can never know about our loved ones and ourselves.”
About the Author
Hwang Sok-yong was born in 1943 and is arguably Korea’s most renowned author. In 1993, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for an unauthorised trip to the North to promote exchange between artists in the two Koreas. Five years later, he was released on a special pardon by the new president. The recipient of Korea’s highest literary prizes, he has been shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger and was awarded the Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature for his book At Dusk. His novels and short stories are published in North and South Korea, Japan, China, France, Germany, and the United States. Previous novels include The Ancient Garden, The Story of Mister Han, The Guest, and The Shadow of Arms.
Translator
Sora Kim-Russell has translated numerous works of Korean fiction, including Hwang Sok-yong’s Princess Bari (Garnet Publishing, 2015), Familiar Things (Scribe, 2017), and At Dusk (Scribe, 2018), which was longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize.
