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Highway with Green Apples

Author:
Translated by:
Publisher: , 2014
Original title: 푸른 사과가 있는 국도, 1995
Link to online store *

Award-winning Korean writer Bae Suah tells the story of a young woman in search of meaning as she considers her fate in modern Seoul. For this aspiring artist, there seems to be no escape from life’s monotony. After leaving her family under the pretense of having fallen in love, she resigns herself to a solitary life rather than succumb to the relentless cultural pressure she feels to exchange her freedom for marriage. Numb to sex and unmoved by love, she begins to lose her grip on reality as those around her fall short of their own aspirations. Confused about the interplay between past and present and unsure of her own desire to live into the future, Highway with Green Apples is a surreal and mesmerizing tale of a young life slowly unraveling.

LKL says:

Looking back at this brief novel I’m struggling to remember much about it other than the sense of greyness I felt when reading it.

LKL rating: score-2score-2score-0score-0score-0

Read a review by Charles Montgomery here. Read a review by Tony Malone here. Entry on Goodreads.com here.

* Where the book is available from a number of sources, they are prioritised as follows: (1) Amazon UK site, or Bookshop.org for the more recent uploads (2) Amazon US site (3) Other sites in US or Europe, including second-hand outlets (4) LTI Korea, where the title is advertised as available from there (5) Onlines stores in Korea. Links to Bookshop.org and Amazon UK site contain an affiliate code which, should you make a purchase, gives a small commission to LKL at no additional cost to you.