Whale: SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023

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The story is so dense and spanning over several years that it came to a point I was wanting it to end, to see the final point.

The International Booker prize is the UK’s most prestigious award for translated fiction, with previous winners including Han Kang and Olga Tokarczuk. Each of the six books on the shortlist originated in a different country – Bulgaria, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Mexico, South Korea and Spain; together they span four continents.She wasn’t wearing any shoes, and the only clothing she had was the uniform on her back; the garments she had been wearing when she went into prison had disappeared during her lengthy stay. Equally, they could be from anywhere, small villages across the planet dreaming of crossing into the promised land of whale-sized aspirations. At one point the prospect of the death of a child is described as “so unacceptable that we have chosen not to name it”. Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. 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.

The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice. Daisy fleabane in particular had always crowded the perimeter of the brickyard like soldiers surrounding a fortress, and once the humans were gone the plant had instantly infiltrated the site, occupying the entire place.Though sunlight filtered through the gaps in the cratered walls, cool air circulated inside the dark cave of the kiln. It’s almost 20 years since Kwan achieved instant recognition in South Korea with his debut novel, titled Whale in its English translation, brilliantly rendered by Chi-Young Kim. Her debut novel features linked characters from 1459 to 1945, and includes maths genius Ada Lovelace having an affair with Charles Dickens, the Portuguese conquest of west Africa, and prostitution in Buchenwald, all narrated by a wandering spirit that occupies inanimate objects. she would say, Life is sweeping away the dust that keeps piling up, as she mopped the floor with a rag, and sometimes she would add, Death is nothing more than dust piling up. Yet the book has its feet firmly on the ground as we see how power manifests itself in many small, often very ordinary ways.

It’s not always easy to see whether the creaky descriptions of women – Geumbok’s “exceptionally wide rump”, Chunhui being “fat and unattractive, so unlike her mother” – are a satire of sexist attitudes or an enactment of them (Cheong cites Updike and Bukowski as key influences).A novel that's more like reading out loud than reading quietly to oneself; its structure is like that of a folktale. I'd like to invite publishers to put trigger warnings to this novel, however, for it is very graphic in terms of violence, sexual abuse, tragic events, etc. Geumbok is a beautiful, strong-willed and intelligent woman who escapes from a traumatic childhood of loss, and is hurled into the big wide world. Amanda Svensson, who is the Swedish translator of Ali Smith’s novels, is longlisted for A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding, a family saga about triplets, translated by Nichola Smalley from Swedish.