“Hwang Sok-yong’s At Dusk is a perfect slice of Koreana … shows the underbelly of a nation through the life of characters inhabiting society's bottom rung … Sok-yong proves once again that fiction can be the best way to tell devastating truths.”
—Gabino Iglesias, NPR
“Having been imprisoned for political reasons, Hwang has a restrained, delicate touch, alive to the nuances of memory, the slipperiness of the past, and the difficult choices life forces us to make…Subtly political, deeply humane, a story about home, loss, and the cost of a country's advancement.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Here [Sok-yong] scrutinizes the quiet disconnect of contemporary relationships through the life of a successful, sixty–something Seoul architect … A piercing modern tale about all we can never know about our loved ones and ourselves.”
—Terry Hong, Booklist, starred review
“Hwang is a master storyteller … his writing is sparse and evocative.”
—Asymptote Journal
“Celebrated author Hwang Sok-yong explores the human toll of South Korea’s rapid modernization … Through the lens of Seoul’s urban housing and architecture, he traces the development of South Korean modernization and highlights the extremes to which its citizens are pushed, challenging readers in the process to reexamine if the nation’s transformation can truly be considered successful.”
—International Examiner
“These characters illustrate South Korea’s sharp economic divides and explore what is required to improve one’s lot in life—and whether it’s even possible for more than a very few. It captures so much in under 200 pages: economic inequality; gender, class, and educational divides; and the complex relationships individuals and the culture at large have with their own history.”
—Bookriot
“Hwang is a master storyteller … his writing is sparse and evocative.”
—Asymptote Journal
Praise for the author:
“Hwang Sok-yong is undoubtedly the most powerful voice of the novel in Asia today.”
—Kenzaburō Ōe, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature
“Hwang Sok-yong is one of South Korea's foremost writers, a powerful voice for society's marginalized, and Sora Kim-Russell's translations never falter.”
—Deborah Smith, translator of The Vegetarian
Praise for Princess Bari(Scribe, 2019)
“A mesmerizing odyssey through the beauty, suffering, and rage that flow from the irrepressible desire to live.”
—Kirkus, starred review
“Combining brutal adversity, escapist fantasy, and deep humanity, Hwang … indelibly alchemizes the plight of the North Korean refugee, and refugees worldwide, into resonantly timely storytelling.”
—Booklist
“Compelling and heartrending … In Hwang’s probing, compassionate work, Western readers unfamiliar with Eastern philosophy and culture will experience new takes on folkloric wisdom born of the enduring collective imagination.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
“[A]n unquestionably valuable book …Princess Bari deserves praise for offering the opportunity to confront difficult and timely subjects such as the environmental destruction caused by rapid modernization and the complicated nature of immigration and human trafficking.”
—Reading in Translation
Praise for Familiar Things (Scribe, 2018)
“Galvanized by Nobel Prize-winner Kenzaburo Oe’s resounding endorsement—’undoubtedly the most powerful voice in Asia today’—and master translator Sora Kim Russell’s exquisite rendition, Hwang’s latest anglophonic import is surely poised for western success.”
—Terry Hong, Booklist, starred review
"Familiar Things… serves as a powerful and potentially contentious reminder of the difficult backstory to South Korean success. As one of the country’s most prominent novelists, Hwang has never shied away from controversy…With Familiar Things, Hwang turns his attention to the underside of South Korea’s remarkable economic development, namely, the vast underclass it has created. Hwang’s riveting tale of second-class citizenship, in which the main characters are forced to pick through garbage to survive, gestures not just at the country’s past and what was lost during rapid modernization. It also serves as an implicit warning about the future of the Korean peninsula."
—John Feffer, Boston Review
“One of South Korea’s most acclaimed authors … [In Familiar Things, Hwang] challenges us to look back and reevaluate the cost of modernization, and see what and whom we have left behind.”
—The Guardian
“[A] vivid depiction of a city too quick to throw away both possessions and people.”
—Financial Times
“Sora Kim-Russell’s translation moves gracefully between gritty, whiffy realism and folk-tale spookiness.”
—The Economist
