Mater 2-10 Hwang Sok-yong

Shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize, Mater 2-10 tells an epic story through a laid-off worker staging a months' long sit-in. "During the long and lonely nights, he talks to his ancestors, chewing on the meaning of life, on wisdom passed down the generations. Through the lives of those ancestors, three generations of railroad workers, Mater 2-10 vividly portrays the struggles of ordinary Koreans, starting from the Japanese colonial era, continuing through Liberation, and right up to the twenty-first century. It is at once a gripping account of a nation’s longing to be free from oppression, (and) a lyrical folktale that reflects the blood, sweat, and tears shed by modern industrial laborers" (Amazon).