Your Neighbour’s Table – Gu Byeong mo

Description

From the award-winning Korean author Gu Byeong-mo and International Booker-nominated translator Chi-Young Kim, comes a thought-provoking story of community and the cultural expectations of motherhood.

What are you willing to sacrifice for a ‘better’ life?

When Yojin moves with her husband and daughter into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, she’s ready for a fresh start. Located on the outskirts of Seoul, the experimental community is a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate. Like her neighbours, Yojin has agreed to have at least two more children over the next ten years.
Yet, from the day she arrives, Yojin feels uneasy about the community spirit thrust upon her. Her concerns grow as communal child care begins and the other parents show their true colours. Your Neighbour’s Table traces the lives of four women in the apartments, all with different aspirations and beliefs.
Will they find a way to live peacefully? Or are society’s expectations stacked against them from the start?

A trenchant social novel from an award-winning author, Your Neighbour’s Table incisively illuminates the unspoken imbalance of women’s parenting labour and the challenges of working towards a better life.