Rina

Kang Young-sook’s Rina (translated by Kim Boram, electronic review copy courtesy of Dalkey Archive Press) begins with twenty-two escapees hoping to cross the border of their poverty-stricken country. As nervous as they are, this is merely the first crossing of several on their arduous journey toward......more

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I wanted to like this book, but didn't. It tells of the travels and travails of a girl who escapes from her terrible home country (never named, but North Korea) and wanders all around a different country (China) being exploited in every possible way, scrabbling to survive, and just generally endurin......more

Probably my favourite book I’ve read on this trip. Incredibly bare direct prose but still hauntingly beautiful. I don’t really know how to describe it......more

A bleak and at times outright jarring narrative. What Rina is "about" is most basically a young woman's never-ending escape, first from her home country of presumably North Korea and subsequently from all of the places and situations of exploitation prostitution etc. that she ends up in. But the boo......more