Hwang Sok-yong to speak at Edinburgh Book Festival

Hwang Sok-yong (Edinburgh International Book Festival)

International Booker Prize-nominated author Hwang Sok-yong will attend the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Aug. 19, in a session titled “Hwang Sok-yong: The Voice of a Divided Nation.”

A towering figure in the Korean literary world, Hwang is renowned for chronicling the country’s turbulent modern history. His latest translated novel in English, "Mater 2-10" — shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize and co-translated by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae — is a sweeping epic that spans more than a century of Korean history. It traces the lives of three generations of railway workers and a laid-off factory worker staging a high-rise sit-in, unfolding from the Japanese colonial era through liberation and into the 21st century.

Festival organizers describe Hwang as “unmatched in depicting the social and political realities of his ruptured homeland,” noting his literary career across five decades and a list of Korea’s most prestigious literary prizes. Hwang spent years in exile and was imprisoned for an unauthorized trip to North Korea in 1989 to foster artistic exchange between the two Koreas. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and released in 1998 on a special pardon by then-President Kim Dae-jung.

Meanwhile, Sun Seung-hye, director of the Korean Cultural Center UK, will speak at the festival on Aug. 12 alongside Sean Xie, representative of the Beijing International Book Fair. Together, they will explore the global rise of web novels, how they are redefining the way stories are written, shared and consumed.