Whale

An adventure-satire of epic proportions, which sheds new light on the changes Korea experienced in its rapid transition from pre-modern to post-modern society

"A carnivalesque fairy tale that celebrates independence and enterprise, a picaresque quest through Korea’s landscapes and history, Whale is a riot of a book. Cheon Myeong-Kwan’s vivid characters are foolish but wise, awful but endearing, and always irrepressible. This is a hymn to restlessness and self-transformation."  -  2023 International Booker Prize Judges

Set in a remote village in South Korea, Whale follows the lives of three linked characters: Geumbok, an extremely ambitious woman who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. A fiction that brims with surprises and wicked humour, from one of the most original voices in South Korea.  

Brimming with surprises and wicked humour, Whale is an adventure satire of epic proportions by one of the most original voices in international literature.

“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... 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

Cheon Myeong-kwan is a South Korean novelist, screenwriter and director. Upon publication of the author’s first story, Frank and I (2003), he received the prestigious Munhakdongne New Writer Award. Cheon’s debut novel, Whale, was published the following year and won the 10th Munhakdongne Novel Award and has become one of the most loved novels in South Korea.