This is the story of a chance encounter: the meeting of two people, two cultures, two passions, two lives. A man and a woman who have nothing in common – he’s an artist, she works in a boarding house; he’s French, she’s French-Korean – are brought together for a few days in a Korean village.

It’s also a story of borders and passage. Should the heroine stay with her mother in the village, or leave with her boyfriend for the capital? Will winter finally give way to spring, synonymous with flowering and the heroine’s blossoming? Why did she agree to accompany the French artist to the border between the two Koreas?

From the very first pages, Élisa Shua Dusapin transports us to the South Korean village of Sokcho. We immediately feel the conflicts that occupy the heroine’s mind. The novel depicts the building of a relationship (whether romantic, friendly, or filial) and all its complexity; it’s all about building trust.

An easy read that takes us on a journey through an aesthetic Korean interlude. A must-read if you want to experience the complexity of a simple story!

Winter in Sokcho, by Élisa Shua Dusapin, trans from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, Open Letter
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Margaux Nguyen Tang

Margaux is an intern at Albertine Books and a student at Audencia Business School. After a previous internship at Editions Points, she would like to pursue her career in publishing. What she loves the most is reading classic novels as well as discovering new contemporary authors and nonfiction - from feminism to history. Her personal record is 40 books read in 6 months.

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