Must-Read Korean Novels – Part 2
In recent years, the Hallyu wave has swept the world in its currents, and with good reason.
While most countries seem to be losing touch with their culture, South Korea has managed to preserve it to some extent in the form of music, films, drama and literature.
In a first partwe recommended 5 must-read Korean novels.
Today we bring you 5 more of the best novels by Korean authors worth delving into.
- The Silent Children by Ji Young Gong
A newly appointed teacher at Ja-ae School uncovers abuse and sexual abuse of children by officials, with the complicity of police and local authorities. These children are silenced all the more because they are deaf.
A novel inspired by facts that really happened in a facility for disabled children in 2005.
This book was adapted into Kdrama starring Gong Yoo in 2011 under the name Silenced.
- Princess Bari by Sok Yong Hwang
Princess Bari tells the story of a young girl, frail and courageous, who escapes North Korea in the late 1990s, flees to China for a while before crossing the ocean in the hold of a cargo ship and ending up in a secret London where all languages and religions meet .
In London, Bari makes a living as a masseuse, but she not only heals the body, she comforts the soul as well. Because Bari inherited from his grandmother the gift of clairvoyance, which allows him to travel in dreams and read the nightmares that others suffer.
- Take care of mom from Kyung Suk Shin
On the day that Sonyô disappears lost in the metropolis, her grown-up children see an abyss appear before them. Together they try to find her. And each, in turn, explores that unique bond that connected and still binds them to whoever gave birth to them.
The daily attention in the village where they grew up, the hopes their mother placed in them, their tireless support… Those who left to live their lives, leaving behind this woman who chose herself only caring about their happiness, they encounter absence.
- Generation B by Kang Myoung Chang
Generation B tells the story of a group of young college students in their twenties who, because they have no place in society, devise the perfect, thoughtful suicide. To make the fall hard, they act with the times, striving to pass the stages according to the only successful model in Korea: integration of one of the best universities and then a big corporation like Samsung.
When success finally catches up with them, the machine can get carried away: on a website called whytuvis.com, suicide videos are published according to a very specific agenda and soon make the front page of the various big news section. newspapers. The site is gaining audience and the phenomenon is spreading like wildfire. This is these young people’s revenge on the society that crushed them…
- Almond who didn’t cry
Yunjae, 15, cannot feel emotions. His cerebral amygdala, his tonsil, isn’t working well. So, to fit in, he has to remember the codes of society like the multiplication table: imitate others when they laugh, say hello, please, thank you when necessary…
Appearing “normal”, in short. When tragedy turns his life upside down, he finds himself alone in the face of adversity. Against all odds, Gon, a rebellious, angry, and violent boy his own age, takes an interest in him. An unlikely friendship will develop between them, which will allow Yunjae to experience his first emotions. But becoming more human and opening up to others comes at a price…
Will you pick up on these readings?
