“The way in which the novel creates a family that accepts members from any nationality, sexual orientation, age, or gender has no precedent in Korean literature. Kang’s unique style of writing is equally radical. Her imagery is bare yet powerful, almost discomfiting in its unfamiliarity, and certainly too innovative to categorize or name.” —Kim Hyung-jung, Hankook Ilbo
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Rina is a defector from a country that might be North Korea, traversing an “empty and futile” landscape. Along the way, she is forced to work at a chemical plant, murders a few people, becomes a prostitute, runs a lucrative bar, and finds a solace in a motley family of wanderers all as disenfranchised as she. Brutal and unflinching, with elements of the mythic and grotesque interspersed with hard-edged realism, Rina is a pioneering work of Korean postmodernism.
Kang Young-sook was born in Chuncheon, Gangwondo, and graduated from the Seoul Institute of the Arts. She attended the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program in 2009, and has served as an advisory member of the Korea Dialogue Academy since 1990.