The Guest

Seven Stories Press, 2005. Faded dustjacket spine, otherwise good secondhand copy.

Translated by Kyung-Ja Chun and Maya West. Based on actual events, The Guest is a profound portrait of a divided people haunted by a painful past, and a generation's search for reconciliation.

During the Korean War, Hwanghae Province in North Korea was the setting of a gruesome fifty-two day massacre. In an act of collective amnesia the atrocities were attributed to American military, but in truth they resulted from malicious battling between Christian and Communist Koreans. Forty years later, Ryu Yosop, a minister living in America returns to his home village, where his older brother once played a notorious role in the bloodshed. Besieged by vivid memories and visited by the troubled spirits of the deceased, Yosop must face the survivors of the tragedy and lay his brother's soul to rest.

Faulkner-like in its intense interweaving narratives, Hwang Sok-Yong's The Guest is a daring and ambitious novel from a major figure in world literature.