Guardian

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    Friend by Paek Nam-nyong review – a bestseller from North Korea

    U.K.
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    Guardian
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    May 6, 2020
    Exploring love, marriage and divorce, and later adapted for TV, Friend became a bestseller when it was published in 1988 in North Korea. It is now the first state-sanctioned novel available to English readers. Novels are wildly popular in North Korea, but the translations that reach us tend to be...
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    Top 10 books about toxic masculinity

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    Guardian
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    January 8, 2020
    Toxic masculinity has become something of a buzz phrase, employed to describe and explain everything from poor dating etiquette to mass shootings and the abuses highlighted by the #MeToo movement. But, as with any buzzword, it is important to be clear in one’s definition.
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    2020 in books: a literary calendar

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    Guardian
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    January 4, 2020
    Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo, translated by Jamie Chang (Scribner UK) A TV scriptwriter’s debut written after quitting her job to look after her child, this multimillion-selling story of an everywoman constrained by society’s sexism is one of the most important books to have come out of...
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    The new Scandi noir? The Korean writers reinventing the thriller

    U.S.A.
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    Guardian
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    Mar 3, 2018
    Last December, Korean novelist Un-su Kim set out on an eight-month deep-sea fishing trip as part of research for his next book. Unreachable by phone or email until next August, when his boat docks in Fiji, he has no idea that his thriller The Plotters has been the subject of a wildly enthusiastic...