Shin became the first woman and the first South Korean to win the Man Asian Literary Prize for her novel, “Please Look After Mom”, a story of a family‘s search for their mother who goes missing one afternoon at a Seoul subway station.
The Man Asian Literary Prize is an annual award given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous year of the award.
Martin Alexander, editor in chief and poetry editor for the Hong Kong-based Asia Literary Review, said in a discussion with Shine on Tuesday, “(Shin is) a great winner who has brought Korea to the forefront of world literature”.
“When I read that book, I was overwhelmed by the mystery of it, thinking they are going to find their mother and the mother has to be found, because that’s the happy ending. What I realized is this is not about finding a mother. I discovered that it‘s not about physically getting the mother back in the house. It’s about finding out about your own mother. That idea about the identity of the lost is something so powerful in that book, making it universal,” said Alexander.
The English translation of Shin‘s novel entered the coveted New York Times best seller list last year, ranking 21st on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best Seller List.
The Asia Literary Review, a quarterly literary journal published in Hong Kong and distributed internationally, launched Tuesday a special issue on Korean literature due to Shin’s worldly known book.
Alexander said the issue will mark a watershed for Korean literature, celebrating the identity of Korea and of its writers.
“Apart from Hyundai or Samsung, people had not really known about Korean culture or Korean literature. K-pop and Korean soap operas are viewed with passion from Iran to Mongolia, but the Korean literature had not really hit the world. We hope that with the help of Shin Kyung-sook and this edition, it will,” said the editor in chief of the Asia Literary Review.
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