The Prisoner: A Memoir - Hardcover

Hwang Sok-yong; (Translated By) Anton Hur; (Translated By) Sora Kim-Russell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1839760834 ISBN 13: 9781839760839

Publisher: Verso Books, 2021

Synopsis

A sweeping account of modern Korean history told through one writer's imprisonmentin time, in language, and in a divided countryfrom Koreas most acclaimed novelist.<BR>In 1993, writer and democracy activist Hwang Sok-yong was sentenced to five years in the Seoul Detention Center upon his return to South Korea from North Korea, the country he had fled with his family as a child at the start of the Korean War. Already a dissident writer well-known for his part in the democracy movement of the 1980s, Hwangs imprisonment forced him to consider the many prisons to which he was subjectof thought, of writing, of Cold War nations, of the heart. In this capacious memoir, Hwang's life is set against the volatile political backdrop of modern Korea, a country subject to colonialism, Cold War division, a devastating war, decades of authoritarian dictatorships, a mass democratic uprising, and a still-lingering, painful division between North and South. The Prisoner moves between Hwang's imprisonment and scenes from his lifeas a boy in Pyongyang and Seoul, as a young activist protesting South Koreas military dictatorships, as a soldier in the Vietnam War, as a dissident writer first traveling abroadand in so doing, braids his extraordinary life into the dramatic revolutions and transformations of Korean society during the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Author

HWANG SOK-YONG is the recipient of the highest literary prizes in Korea and across Europe. His writing, exploring the troubled history of a violently divided Korea, has achieved international acclaim, and his status as as an imprisoned, exiled, and dissident author has been championed by World PEN. His many novels include <i>At Dusk</i>, <i>Familiar Things</i>, and <i>The Guest.</i>

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1839760834
• ISBN 13: 9781839760839
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 624