Author: Hwang Sok-yong
Translated by: Sora Kim-Russell, Youngjae Josephine Bae
Publisher: Scribe, 2023
Original title: 철도원 삼대, 2020
Link to online store *
International Booker–nominated virtuoso Hwang Sok-yong is back with another powerful story — an epic, multi-generational tale that threads together a century of Korean history.
Centred on three generations of a family of rail workers and a laid-off factory worker staging a high-altitude sit-in, Mater 2-10 vividly depicts the lives of ordinary working Koreans, starting from the Japanese colonial era, continuing through Liberation, and right up to the twenty-first century. It is at once a powerful account that captures a nation’s longing for a rail line to reconnect North and South, a magical-realist novel that manages to reflect the lives of modern industrial workers, and a culmination of Hwang’s career — a masterpiece thirty years in the making. A true voice of a generation, Hwang shows again why he is unmatched when it comes to depicting the grief of a divided nation and bringing to life the cultural identity and trials and tribulations of the Korean people.
Source: publisher’s website
LKL says:
While Mater 2-10 is a fitting tribute to the workers of the colonial period, particularly the railwaymen, and is a passionate advocate for workers’ rights, at times it reads like a historical text: the Japanese emperor’s surrender speech is reproduced verbatim, as are two of General MacArthur’s decrees; and at one point Hwang weighs in to the historical debate around whether the division of the Korean peninsula along the 38th parallel was a spur-of-the-moment decision of military convenience or in fact had been agreed between the US and USSR in advance at the Potsdam conference. The novel is a lovely folksy read when it centres on the lives of the family at its centre, but as it moves out to tell the stories of the various communist resistance activists and then into historical exposition it becomes less engaging.
LKL rating: 
External links:
- Review by Paul Fulcher (PF rating: ).
- Review by Tony Malone.
- Entry on Goodreads.com.
* 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.