A literature highlight from South Korea:

»Der Wal« by Cheon Myeong-kwan

Reading and author talk on 14 September 2023 at 7:00 p.m.

Moderated by: Katharina Borchardt (author, critic and literary editor of SWR)
Interpreter: Dr. Sool Park (philosopher, writer and translator)
The author will be present, signed copies will be available for purchase.

»Der Wal« is an epic in drastic images and full of bizarre humour, then again cryptic and tender, which captivates the reader with its cleverly built tension.

Against the backdrop of Korea in the second half of the twentieth century, the lives of two women are told: Of Kūmbok, an ambitious country girl who becomes a successful entrepreneur, factory owner and cinema operator; and the story of Kūmbok's mute daughter Ch'unhūi, gentle despite her fearsome figure and endowed with hidden talents, who returns innocently convicted after suffering years to the place of her childhood, a brick factory that has since fallen into disrepair.

The author and film director Cheon Myeong-kwan (born 1964) is one of the cult authors in South Korea. His novel "Der Wal", published in German and English in 2022 and nominated for the International Booker Prize in 2023, inspires with its fresh, independent narrative style, in which elements of magical realism can be found just as much as motifs from ancient Korean myths or borrowings from martial arts films and all kinds of genre literature.

"With irony and depth, Cheon depicts the Machiavellian course of the world between ruin and ruins. He is a gifted storyteller."
FAZ, Steffen Gnam

Cheon Myeong-kwan – Der Wal
Translated from Korean by Matthias Augustin and Kyunghee Park
512 pages, hardcover
WEISSBOOKS
ISBN 978-3-86337-197-5