Years and Years by Hwang Jungeun

DESCRIPTION

From the internationally acclaimed author of One Hundred Shadows and I'll Go On.

Years and Years opens with the elderly Yi Sunil, devoted housewife and mother of three, making her annual pilgrimage to a remote village in South Korea to visit her grandfather's grave—likely for the final time. What follows is a multigenerational exploration of desires thwarted by societal obligations and mores for the women in this family. 

Sejin, the middle child, keeps her sexuality closeted, while her older sister, Yeongjin, finds herself financially responsible for the rest of the family, forcing her to give up on her personal dreams. Meanwhile, the youngest, Mansu, leaves the family for New Zealand, where he is free to pursue his own career and life, ironically supported by the sacrifices of his mother and sisters.

Tracing the lives of the family's three women, Years and Years exposes the ways in which, despite the empathy we harbor for our loved ones, we inevitably trap one another in particular roles, while also illuminating our resolve to carry on through the constraints of time and tradition.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HWANG JUNGEUN (1976) is one of the bright young things of Korean literature, having published three collections of short stories and five novels to date. One Hundred Shadows (2010), her first novel, was both a critical and commercial success; it's a mix of oblique fantasy, hard-edge social critique, and offbeat romance garnered the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award and the Korean Booksellers' Award. Her novel Savage Alice is forthcoming from Open Letter Books in 2026.

JANET HONG is a writer and translator based in Vancouver, Canada. She received the 2018 TA First Translation Prize and the 2018 LTI Korea Translation Award for her translation of Han Yujoo's The Impossible Fairy Tale. She's a two-time winner of the Harvey Award for Best International Book for her translations of Keum Suk Gendry-Kim's Grass and Yeong-shin Ma's Mom. Other recent translations include Kwon Yeo-sun's Lemon and Kang Young-sook's At Night He Lifts Weights. 

PRAISE

"There is an unforgettable, curious beauty to be found [in One Hundred Shadows]." — Han Kang, Winner of the Man Booker International Prize

DETAILS

Paperback | 116 pages