Princess Bari

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PRINCESS BARI

Hwang Sok-yong Translated from the Korean by Sora Kim-Russell

“Hwang Sok-yong is undoubtedly the most powerful voice of the novel in Asia today’ Kenzaburo Oe, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

In the North Korean city of Chongjin, a seventh daughter is born in 1983 to a couple longing for a son. Abandoned hours after her birth, she is dragged away by the family dog and eventually rescued by her grandmother. The old woman names the child Bari , after a Korean legend telling of a similarly forsaken princess who undertakes a quest for an elixir that will bring peace to the souls of the dead. Bari, who has inherited her grandmother’s extraordinary intuitive powers and the ability to see apparitions, escapes famine and desolation in North Korea as a delicate but brave adolescent. She finds refuge in China before embarking on the sort of journey made by thousands in our time: across the ocean in the hold of a cargo ship, bound for London and, it is hoped, for a better life.