Cho Nam-joo’s previous novel, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, was a powerful examination of everyday sexism and its effects on one woman’s mental health. The book flew off bookshelves and earned its author worldwide acclaim. Nam-joo’s new novel, Saha, also deals with social and political issues, in a broader sense, with a focus on systemic inequality.
Saha has a dystopian setting; a city-state called Town, where residents are categorised into one of three categories: Citizens, L2s, anyone else. The area is governed by a board of faceless puppetmasters known as the Ministers, who hold all the power and none of the culpability for their cruel decisions, decisions which affect our protagonists, a group of interconnected outsiders living in the Saha Estates, a strange, independent accommodation based on the outskirts of Town.
Saha starts promisingly, with a thriller-like premise – a dead body in a car – and it ends with a thriller-like climax, but sadly, the narrative between these sections is too scattershot to be fully engaging. It is a novel told through several perspectives, and there is a sense that Nam-joo set too many plates spinning, and that a more focused narrative would have been a stronger conduit for her ideas.
Saha, Cho Nam-Joo (Scribner)
Price: £14.99. Info: here
words JOSHUA REES
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