Whale
By Cheon Myeong-Kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim
This eccentric debut novel, longlisted for the International Booker prize, has oodles of character, as well as oodles of characters. It largely concerns the antics of Chunhui and her mother Geumbok. Everyone is described with cartoonish physicality: Geumbok has an “exceptionally wide rump” and a scent that “made men’s groins