Cheon Myeong-kwan's 'Whale' Misses English Booker Prize... Award Goes to 'Time Shelter'

'Whale' by Cheon Myeong-kwan, which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the most prestigious literary award in the UK, unfortunately did not win. The honor went to Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov for 'Time Shelter.' Translator Angela Rodel also received the award alongside him.

The Booker Prize judging panel announced 'Time Shelter' as the winner of the 2023 International Booker Prize at the ceremony held at London’s Sky Garden on the 23rd (local time). The novel tells the story of a "clinic for the past" that helps Alzheimer's patients recover happy moments from their past. Each floor of the clinic meticulously recreates the past of Alzheimer's patients in ten-year increments, allowing them to regain familiar and joyful times. However, as healthy people also begin to flock to the clinic to escape the anxious and painful reality, it starts to cause social problems.

Regarding the novel, the judging panel commented, “The original, subversive, and pathologically humorous novel deals with the fascinating dangers of memory and nostalgia on both personal and global levels.”

Cheon Myeong-kwan, the author of "Whale" (right), and translator Kim Ji-young are posing in front of the press at the Booker Prize International category award ceremony held on the 23rd (local time) at Sky Garden in London, UK.

'Whale,' which was shortlisted but did not win, set a record as the fourth Korean novel to reach the final shortlist. In 2016, Han Kang’s 'The Vegetarian' won the Man Booker Prize at the time, and in 2018 Han Kang’s 'White Book' and last year Jeong So-ra’s 'The Curse Rabbit' were finalists. The Booker Prize is recognized worldwide as a prestigious literary award alongside the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Prix Goncourt.

After the award announcement, author Cheon said, “My novel is a story about people’s lives, very Korean, and also an old story, but it contains universal experiences and emotions that anyone can relate to, so I thought foreigners might enjoy it.” However, he added, “Europe tends to make political choices in both film and literature, and although 'Whale' can be entertaining, it lacks that aspect, so I thought it would be difficult from the start.”

'Whale' centers on Geumbok, who rises from a mountain village girl to a successful entrepreneur in a small town, and her daughter Chunhee, who has a disability but possesses heightened sensitivity. On the 18th (local time), the Booker Prize judging panel announced the six finalists and described 'Whale,' published in 2004, as “a modern classic of Korean literature over the past 20 years,” calling it “an adventurous and satirical drama that reexamines the rapid changes Korea experienced moving from a premodern to a postmodern society.”

The novel, which won the 2004 Munhakdongne Award, has only become known in the English-speaking world this year. It was first published in the UK in January and the translated version was released in the US on the 9th. Supported by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, it has been published in German, Russian, Japanese, and Turkish, and an Italian translation is currently underway.