[Book Sip] The 50th Anniversary Man Booker Prize Winner 'Milkman'

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly reach the reader's heart, creating a point of connection with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from the book. - Editor's note

This is the 2018 winner of the Man Booker Prize, one of the world's top three literary awards and the most prestigious literary prize in the English-speaking world, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the prize. It is the third novel by Anna Burns, who became the first from Northern Ireland to win the Man Booker Prize, instantly rising to the ranks of world-renowned authors. Set in the 1970s, it tells the daily life and inner world of an eighteen-year-old woman exposed to tangible and intangible violence within a closed community sharply divided by a single road, from a first-person colloquial perspective.

Back then, when I was eighteen, I grew up in a society on the brink of explosion, where the basic principle was that nothing happened unless there was physical violence, clear verbal insult, or public ridicule right in front of you; therefore, you could not claim to have been harmed by something that did not happen. Page 17

"So, you mean if I stop walking while reading, stop putting my hands in my pockets, stop carrying a small reading light, and look right, then left, then right again to see if nothing dangerous or immoral happens, I will be happy?" "It has nothing to do with happiness." My third brother-in-law said, and that was, then and even today, the saddest thing I have ever heard. Page 99

If I said, "I was walking along the border road reading Ivanhoe, and that person told me to get in the car," the response would be, "Why on earth were you walking along a dangerous border road, and why were you reading Ivanhoe?" If I said, "I was running in Reservoir Park when the Milkman appeared and ran with me," the response would be, "Why on earth did you go to such a dangerous and suspicious place, and why were you running?" Page 257

"If only one person is normal and everyone else is not, the collective consciousness would treat that one person as crazy. Does that mean that person is crazy?" "Yes." My friend said. Page 285

How terrifying it is not to be numb, to recognize the situation, to know the facts, to accept the facts, to exist in the present, and to become an adult. Page 418

Milkman | Written by Anna Burns | Translated by Hong Hanbyeol | Changbi | 500 pages | 16,800 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.