Mater 2-10

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 a family of rail workers, Mater 2-10 vividly depicts the lives of workers and common folk, starting from the Japanese colonial era, continuing through Liberation, and right up to the twenty-first century, rendering in elegant prose a history of modern Korea. 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.

Mater 2-10 moves like a locomotive, demonstrating both Hwang Sok-yong’s powers as a writer and the beauty of the long novel. The plot centres on three generations of rail workers and Yi Jino, a laid-off factory worker staging a high-altitude sit-in. Perched on the catwalk of a sixteen-storey-high factory chimney during long and bitterly cold nights, Jino talks to his ancestors and friends, chewing on the meaning of life, on wisdom passed down through generations.

Mater 2-10 is a stunning achievement. It is at once a powerful account that captures a nation’s longing for a rail line that would connect 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.