Princess Bari

By Hwang Sok-yong

In a drab North Korean city, a seventh daughter is born to a couple longing for a son. Abandoned hours after her birth, she is eventually rescued by her grandmother. The old woman names the child Bari, after a legend telling of a forsaken princess who undertakes a quest for an elixir that will bring peace to the souls of the dead. As a young woman, frail, brave Bari escapes North Korea and takes refuge in China before embarking on a journey across the ocean in the hold of a cargo ship, seeking a better life. She lands in London, where she finds work as a masseuse. Paid to soothe her clients' aching bodies, she discovers that she can ease their more subtle agonies as well, having inherited her beloved grandmother's uncanny ability to read the pain and fears of others. Bari makes her home amongst other immigrants living clandestinely. She finds love in unlikely places, but also suffers a series of misfortunes that push her to the limits of sanity. Yet she has come too far to give in to despair - Princess Bari is a captivating novel that leavens the grey reality of cities and slums with the splendour of fable. Hwang Sok-yong has transfigured an age-old legend and made it vividly relevant to our own times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Periscope
• Release date: Apr 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781859641767

Hwang Sok-yong

Hwang Sok-yong was born in 1943 and is arguably Korea’s most renowned author. In 1993, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for an unauthorised trip to the North to promote exchange between artists in the two Koreas. Five years later, he was released on a special pardon by the new president. The recipient of Korea’s highest literary prizes, he has been shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger and was awarded the Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature for his book At Dusk. His novels and short stories are published in North and South Korea, Japan, China, France, Germany, and the United States. Previous novels include The Ancient Garden, The Story of Mister Han, The Guest, and The Shadow of Arms.

Reviews for Princess Bari

[strandbooks_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received Princess Bari from the early reviewers library thing program. It was recently translated from Korean to English. It follows Bari, a North Korean girl as she grows up in the 90s along the Korean/chinese border. As one of 7 girls her family goes through a lot of hardship including when Bari is smuggled to England by human traffickers. Much of the book centers around her clairvoyant gifts through dreams. I tend to skim these kinds of passages but it is such a big part of the book I had to pay attention more. It flirts on the edge of magical realism (not my thing), but nothing out of the ordinary happens because of her dreams. I appreciated getting a better understanding of the tensions between North Korea and China through their day-to-day lives as well as how Bari makes her new life in England a success.

[daffydownd1lly · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as an Early Reviewer. I enjoy historical fiction but the books I usually read are from the 19th century to early 20th. This book takes place in the late 20th century however, it is about North Korean's seeking refuge in other places, in London in this case, and I was interested in hearing the story. I was not disappointed! I couldn't put the book down. Much of the book is about life in North Korea, the every day, the legends that have been passed down through the years, and the feelings of having to leave your home land and be alone in a new, unfamiliar place. I loved quotes throughout the book such as: "The world and every person in it--we're all the same." "I realized that life means waiting, enduring the passage of time. Nothing ever quite meets our expectations, yet as long as we are alive, time flows on, and everything eventually comes to pass." "No matter what awful things we go through, we cannot abandon hope in the world or in others." It is a book of learning, and I will be reading it again.

[sirijr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Princess Bari is a fast paced, melancholy meditation on suffering and human cruelty, adversity and forgiveness, and shared humanity across different experiences and cultures. The story is told from the point of view of Bari, a girl who escapes from North Korea and survives increasingly bleak circumstances that don't let up through the entire novel. The main narrative is interspersed with scenes focused on Bari's gift, a sort of psychic ability that becomes a dissociative coping mechanism at times and a way to maintain a connection to lost loved ones who help guide her through her challenging reality. Bari herself is a fairly stoic and matter-of-fact narrator, and the action of the plot was rapid, which helped keep my focus on Bari and her humanity rather than simply her experiences as a victim or refugee--it underlined her desires and agency in a very relatable way.

[janarose1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Bari and her family face starvation, informers, and death in North Korea. After her father is arrested and the family scatters, Bari escapes to China. In China, she is alone, cold, hungry, and desperate. After working illegally as a foot masseuse, she escapes in a cargo ship to London. I had trouble getting into this book. It was a mix of real life trauma and mysticism, as Bari has the talent to reach beyond the mundane and read others. Although this book wasn't really for me, it was well written and the characters well developed. I'm sure that many will enjoy this story.

[gerconk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Princess Bari by Hwang Sok-Yong takes us into the struggles of Bari' and her family as they try to survive the starvation of North Korea. Her psychic gifts don't help her life get any easier. Eventually she ends up on a ship to England. The crossing is violent and difficult. In England she is able to find work as a foot massager. She marries, has a child, the child dies. In the end she is reunited with her husband who has spent months in North Korea looking for his brother. The story is sad due to the struggles of Bari's life. The story seemed unfinished as the end leaves us wondering how the two of them will continue their lives.

[phoenixterran · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Several of Hwang Sok-Yong's works have now been translated into English (with more to come), but Hwang's novel Princess Bari is the first that I have had the opportunity to read. However, considering the strength of the novel and the deep impression it left, I do suspect that it won't be the last of the author's works that I'll pick up.Princess Bari follows the life of Bari, a young woman born in North Korea who escapes to China as a child and who is later smuggled into England. In part, the novel is also a sort of contemporary re-imagining of the Korean myth of Princess Bari. The story of Bari's legendary namesake both parallels and is entwined with her own. I particularly appreciated this incorporation of mythology into the narrative structure and framework of the novel as a whole as well as in its smaller details.Princess Bari is an engrossing read, but it is certainly not a light one. Bari's life and the lives of so many of those around her are filled with tragedy. Hwang doesn't shy away from portraying the unfairness, misery, and suffering present in the modern world. The novel is a well-crafted and compelling work, but it can be very hard-hitting as well.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think this book is a translation, but my copy has no info on a translator or it being translated. The author is a very well-known and highly regarded Korean author, so I wouldn't expect him to be writing in English, but no info???———This novel brings the old Korean legend of Princess Bari--"an abandoned princess traveling to the ends of the Earth to find the elixir that will bring peace to the souls of the dead"--into the modern world. I am unfamiliar with the traditional tale, though now I really want to read some version of it. I enjoy these types of novels (The Snow Child is another).I enjoyed this story, it seems so far-fetched, yet I know it really is not. The famine in North Korea was real. People do survive being smuggled on container ships, probably way more often than most people realize. There really is a network of illegal immigrants--often victims of human trafficking--in London as elsewhere. Bari is the 7th daughter of a couple in North Korea. She has a happy childhood until her world begins to fall apart during the famine in North Korea. Her family splits apart--her father is taken away, her oldest sister flees to China, and Bari goes with one of her sisters and her grandmother and dear dog to China. They hide in the woods and help a farm family, who also keeps their dog. Her sister dies of hunger and cold. Her grandmother dies of old age, and Bari goes to a city where she makes friends with a couple. She and the wife eventually manage to survive a smuggling to England. There she uses her skills as a foot masseuse (learned in China) and seer-like abilities to pay off her smuggling debt and build a client list. She marries and has a daughter, but is not done with her suffering.