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Maaza Mengiste: 'Knausgård really doesn’t need me as a reader, I can move on'
/August 21, 2020The Booker nominated author on the influence of Homer, struggling with Moby-Dick and feeling changed by Ama Ata Aidoo -
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If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha review – a fizzing, grisly debut
/August 3, 2020S outh Korea is believed to have the highest plastic surgery rates in the world, with a third of women thought to have gone under the knife by 30. Eyelid surgery and jaw slimming are among the most popular procedures, and improving physical appearance isn’t just vanity – it’s an openly recognised... -
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John Gittings on the dramas and many horros of the Yi dynasty
Lady Hong's jewel of a book deserves to become a classic. She was born into an impoverished aristocratic family in 1735. At the age of eight she entered the royal court as the bride chosen for crown prince Sado, bearing him two children before she was 18. -
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The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun review – life under late capitalism
/July 9, 2020Following a spate of recent fiction considering the strange intersection of our work and leisure lives – novels such as Ling Ma’s apocalyptic satire Severance and Sayaka Murata’s oddly affecting Convenience Store Woman – The Disaster Tourist offers up another fresh and sharp story about life under... -
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Planet virus: seven novelists from around the world on living with the pandemic
Covid-19 has exposed social and political fault lines from Brazil to Iceland to South Korea. Here, seven acclaimed writers share their lockdown experiences -
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The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
The House on Fripp Island by Rebecca Kauffman; Seven Years of Darkness by You-jeong Jeong; The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish; The Devil You Know by Emma Kavanagh; Die for Me by Luke Jennings -
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The best books and audiobooks of 2020 so far
Named for the Korean equivalent of Jane Doe, this novel about a woman who plays by patriarchal rules but can never win, was a huge bestseller in South Korea, where it has become a touchstone for conversation around feminism and gender and a lightning rod for anti-feminists who view the book as... -
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A coldness that masks a burning rage': South Korea's female writers rise up
In May 2016, a 23-year-old South Korean woman was murdered in a public toilet near Gangnam station in Seoul. Her attacker claimed in court that “he had been ignored by women a lot and couldn’t bear it any more”. -
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Women's prize at 25: what it is like to win by Zadie Smith, Naomi Alderman and more
The Women’s prize was created because women were excluded from the world of literary accolades; in the last 25 years there has been tremendous progress, but female writers still face unique challenges. I am proud to have won. The shortlist was formidable and I was buoyed merely to be in the company... -
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Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah review – a dreamlike quest
Untold Night and Day was first published in Korea in 2013 and is the fourth of Bae Suah’s novels – which number more than a dozen – to be translated into English by Deborah Smith. It is also the first of her books to be published in the UK, arriving at a time when Korean culture is in the spotlight...