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    Winter in Sokcho
    Unavailable
    Winter in Sokcho
    Unavailable
    Winter in Sokcho
    Ebook106 pages1 hour

    Winter in Sokcho

    By Elisa Shua Dusapin

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    ‘A punchy first novel.’ -- Guardian Top 10 Best New Books in Translation

    As if Marguerite Duras wrote Convenience Store Woman – a beautiful, unexpected novel from a debut French Korean author

    It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North’s watchtowers. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape.

    The two form an uneasy relationship. When she agrees to accompany him on trips to discover an ‘authentic’ Korea, they visit snowy mountaintops and dramatic waterfalls, and cross into North Korea. But he takes no interest in the Sokcho she knows – the gaudy neon lights, the scars of war, the fish market where her mother works. As she’s pulled into his vision and taken in by his drawings, she strikes upon a way to finally be seen.

    An exquisitely-crafted debut, which won the Prix Robert Walser, Winter in Sokcho is a novel about shared identities and divided selves, vision and blindness, intimacy and alienation. Elisa Shua Dusapin’s voice is distinctive and unmistakable.

    ‘Beautifully translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, comes together slowly, like a Polaroid photo, its effects both intimate and foreign.’ -- TLS

    'Enigmatic, beguiling...This finely crafted debut explores topics of identity and heredity in compelling fashion. In its aimless, outsider protagonist there are echoes of Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman.' -- Irish Times

    'The bustling seaside resort of Sokcho in South Korea is the perfect backdrop for this quietly haunting debut.' -- Daily Mail

    'Crisp and poetic.' -- i

    'Dazzling.' -- Vogue Top Five Debuts

    'A fascinating portrait of life in modern Korea.' -- S Magazine

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDaunt Books
    Release dateFeb 20, 2020
    ISBN9781911547556
    Unavailable
    Winter in Sokcho
    Author

    Elisa Shua Dusapin

    Elisa Shua Dusapin was born in France in 1992 and raised in Paris, Seoul, and Switzerland. Winter in Sokcho is her first novel. Published in 2016 to wide acclaim, it was awarded the Prix Robert Walser and the Prix Régine Desforges and has been translated into six languages. Her novel, Winter In Sokcho, won the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2021.

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    Reviews for Winter in Sokcho

    3.5/5

    115 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I read Winter in Sokcho after Convenience Store Woman, and although they both seem similar, they couldn't be any more different. Winter in Sokcho is romantic, and lonely and beautiful. I love the way the city plays it's part in creating the story, and the way there's longing but also self-control. It's so in between but still so bold. Worth the read, couldn't put it down.
    • 3/5
      Wistful with a lot of seafood but no real payoff
    • 4/5
      Sokcho is a seaside town in the Northern part of South Korea - busy and full of people in summer and desolate and almost abandoned in winter. The narrator of this story had lived there all her life. When we meet her she works in a local hotel (doing pretty much anything needed) and tries to decide what she wants to do with her life - moving in with her boyfriend does not seem to be the answer, especially when he moves to Seoul. And in the middle of this dead season a French cartoonist shows up and takes a room in the hotel. Before long their two lives become entangled - he needs a driver, she is drawn towards him - partially because her father was French, partially because of something she cannot understand. But neither the narrator, nor the cartoonist are the main characters in this story - Sokcho overshadows them both. While the human characters feel as if they were just sketched, the town is there in all its beauty; with its traditional culture and empty streets. And between the author and the translator, the language makes you want to stop and listen (although I wish there was a dictionary/notes in some places). How close is that description to the real town is unclear. But it does not matter. With the author being French Korean just as her narrator is(albeit one living in the other culture), I suspect that at least part of the story is based on her real life. If you feel like reading a relatively short and very melancholy book about a town by the sea, steeped in Korean culture, give this one a try. It probably won't work for everyone but I enjoyed it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      This short novel looks at a young unnamed French-Korean woman who works at a guest house near the North Korean border as the cleaner/cook. She spends one night a week with her mother, and isn't really interested in moving to Seoul with her boyfriend. She seems satisfied yet unsatisfied with her life.A French cartoonist/illustrator arrives. It is winter, and it is cold and business is slow. She finds him interesting--and he finds her interesting. This book is somehow a mashup of [book:That Time of Year|51243985] and [book:Convenience Store Woman|38357895]--but I liked both of those books more.