3.0
The Guest
By Hwang Sok-yong & Kyung-Ja Chun &Publisher Description
Based on actual events, The Guest is a profound portrait of a divided people haunted by a painful past, and a generation's search for reconciliation.
During the Korean War, Hwanghae Province in North Korea was the setting of a gruesome fifty-two day massacre. In an act of collective amnesia the atrocities were attributed to American military, but in truth they resulted from malicious battling between Christian and Communist Koreans. Forty years later, Ryu Yosop, a minister living in America returns to his home village, where his older brother once played a notorious role in the bloodshed. Besieged by vivid memories and visited by the troubled spirits of the deceased, Yosop must face the survivors of the tragedy and lay his brother's soul to rest.
Faulkner-like in its intense interweaving narratives, The Guest is a daring and ambitious novel from a major figure in world literature.
During the Korean War, Hwanghae Province in North Korea was the setting of a gruesome fifty-two day massacre. In an act of collective amnesia the atrocities were attributed to American military, but in truth they resulted from malicious battling between Christian and Communist Koreans. Forty years later, Ryu Yosop, a minister living in America returns to his home village, where his older brother once played a notorious role in the bloodshed. Besieged by vivid memories and visited by the troubled spirits of the deceased, Yosop must face the survivors of the tragedy and lay his brother's soul to rest.
Faulkner-like in its intense interweaving narratives, The Guest is a daring and ambitious novel from a major figure in world literature.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities6 Reviews
3.0
R.A. Savin
Created 12 months agoShare
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Nicole de Noel
Created about 1 year agoShare
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Queralt
Created about 2 years agoShare
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“Not much to say about this one. It follows Reverend Ryu, a Korean man born in the North who then moved to the US and started a parish. He is going back to North Korea with a tour group that is intended for people who left to reunited with their families, some sort of separated families reunion only for Koreans in the US and Canada.
Anyways, the whole bit about traveling to North Korea, Ryu trying to hide his identity because he was wary of the regime, and stuff like that was interesting. I liked how Hwang portrayed the North Korean guides as following the rules and loving the regime, but also making them very human.
Other than that, it talks about the 'guests' aka smallpox, Korean war crimes and how it can devastate a person (and a family, and a nation), and Christianity in North Korea.
This was my third attempt at Hwang's fiction and whilst I loved his memoir https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56034516.The_Prisoner , I'm still not enjoying it big time. His writing seems to have many layers and I do find myself thinking of the books (especially https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33148672.Familiar_Things for whatever reason, because that one I disliked), but I don't find them enjoyable. Will I give it a new try later on? Mayhaps.”
cure
Created over 4 years agoShare
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Caz Sundberg
Created over 5 years agoShare
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About Hwang Sok-yong
HWANG SOK-YONG is one of the contemporary masters of Korean literature. His work, which grapples with the troubled history of his divided country, has resulted in his imprisonment, his exile, and the rare achievement of a wide international readership. Hwang’s novels in English includeThe Old Garden, a tragic love story set against the backdrop of the end of the Cold War and South Korea's political revolution of the eighties; The Guest, based on the true account of a violent clash between Communist and Christian neighbors in a Korean village town; and The Shadow of Arms, inspired by his experience as a Korean soldier in the Vietnam War. Some of his recent bestsellers in Korea, where Hwang is among that country’s most popular writers, includeBaridegi (Princess Bari) and Gaebapbaragibyeol (The Evening Star), a coming of age novel that Hwang wrote as a blog.
Other books by Hwang Sok-yong
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