“Told in an omniscient and playful narrative voice, smoothly translated by Chi-Young Kim, this is a distinctly Korean take on Great Expectations, a tale of aspiration and folly punctuated with artisanal bricks and dried fish . . . an affecting theme emerges about the sins of mothers, while philosophical notions broach the comic . . . and the profound . . . The novel succeeds thanks to its multi-sensual atmosphere of strangeness and a conflicted protagonist who simply refuses to accept the mundane.”
–Christian House, Financial Times
“A novel that seduces.”
–JoongAng Ilbo
“A peerless work devoted to telling a powerful story and lauded for expanding Korean literature into new dimensions.”
–The Hankyoreh
“[Whale] redefines what fiction can be.”
–The Kyunghyang Sinmun
“Whale overflows with freshness. That’s what makes it special.”
—OhmyNews
Author
About Cheon Myeong-kwan
Cheon Myeong-kwan is a South Korean novelist, screenwriter and film director. His novel Modern Family was adapted into a film, Boomerang Family, in 2013.
