Three Generations by Yeom Sang-seop

Set in early 20th-century Korea during a period of rapid social change and foreign domination, the novel follows three generations of a single family as they confront shifting values, economic strain, and ideological conflicts; the eldest generation clings to traditional hierarchies and moral codes, the middle generation seeks security through compromise and material advancement, and the youngest embraces new ideas and individual desires, producing clashes that expose the corrosive effects of modernization, commercialization, and colonial pressure on family life and communal ethics.