Intractable – volume 1

At the turn of the 1990s and 2000s in South Korea, in a social environment hard hit by the fallout of the financial crisis in Asia, Gu Go-shin is a strange and charismatic union fighter. At the head of a small consulting agency for the defense of workers, he carries out various shock operations with heart and mastery to promote their rights, like a commando leader. It is in this context that his path crosses that of Lee Sooin, a promising young retail executive from the ranks of the army. Human, hardworking, courageous, Lee has only one fault: not to support injustice when he witnesses it. The detestable social practices of his new employer, a powerful French group recently established in Korea, will awaken his instincts as a vigilante. Together, Lee and Gu will oppose the manipulations and moral harassment to which are cynically subjected, with the complicity of part of the Korean management, the small employees of the sign. Intractable transposes in the form of fiction the story of the establishment - ultimately failed - of Carrefour in this Asian country. Remarkable mastery and brilliance, Choi Kyu-sok depicts with finesse all the adventures of this clash of two worlds, and at the same time offers an astonishing portrait of a complex Korean society, crossed by multiple tensions. Enough to also feed the dossier loaded with multinationals, never in need of social mistreatment. This first volume inaugurates a series of six volumes: volumes 2 and 3 will appear in French at the beginning of 2020. Translated from Korean by Kette Amoruso What if the world of work became one of the front lines of the confrontation with multinationals and their practices?