These ten stories by South Korean author Bora Chung started off with somewhat lighter, surreal, yet meaningful horror - the opening stories were just breathtaking: “The Head”, the story of a woman whose remains of all sorts, hair, skin, nails, feces assemble to form a new being; “The Embodiment”, in which a woman falls pregnant mysteriously to an even more mysterious “child”; and the titular “Cursed Bunny” in which karma finds its place through cursed objects. I liked the kind of sharp critique creeping through this intro, along with a very visual kind of storytelling. Alas, this intro was also the highlight for me.

So I'm guessing I need to explain my use of Duchamp's sculpture in connection with Bora Chung's book, Cursed Bunny. This book is on the shortlist for the International Booker prize 2022; with I believe 50,000 GBP of prize money. More importantly, however, a panel of judges have taken their time to evaluate and consider this book seriously, for presumably, its literary and artistic merits. A story about robot helpers Goodbye, My Love immediately reminded me of similar A.I inspired by stories by Ted Chang or Kazuo Ishiguro WWB: What particular translation challenges arose as Cursed Bunny was brought into English? Were they points that the author anticipated, or was there something of a process of discovery in which the author found that the translator shed light on unexpected aspects of the original-language work? Among Korean authors, Park Wan-Suh (also transliterated as Park Wan-So or Park Wan-Seo, 1931-2011). She showed me how to write about womanhood in modern society. She has a way of expressing the richness of human emotion, intricately woven into a powerful story of modern Korean history, war, loss and love. The first two stories will grab your attention and probably determine if you set the book aside or not. The first is about a haunted toilet ( The Head )

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The title story Cursed Bunny (저주 토끼) begins with the quote that opens my review and tells the story of the narrator’s grandfather, who created cursed objects, such as the lamp shaped like a bunny rabbit, for his customers. In this case the cursed bunny was one he made to seek his own revenge (violating his own rules) on a company who had put a friend out of business by unscrupulous means, leading to the friend’s suicide. The lamp, once gifted to the CEO, creates chaos in the life of the CEO’s family and his business, but also with implications for the grandfather. Una variada colección de cuentos cortos por Bora Chung. La portada fue suficiente razón para aventurarme. Algunos muy lindos hallazgos, otros no tanto. El inodoro ya no es el lugar seguro que alguna vez conocí, y nunca voy a tocar una lámpara con forma de conejo, no importa qué. Un gran comienzo con unas verdaderamente sobresalientes historias, el impulso gradualmente disminuyendo hasta que para el final solo deseaba terminar para seguir con otra cosa. Now there are ten stories in this collection, but I’m not going to discuss all of them in this review—that’s something for another time. I’m going to focus in and pinpoint the stories I found most interesting and had values I could take away with, so let us delve a bit deeper, shall we? From an author never before published in the United States, Cursed Bunny is unique and imaginative, blending horror, sci-fi, fairytales, and speculative fiction into stories that defy categorization. By turns thought-provoking and stomach-turning, here monsters take the shapes of furry woodland creatures and danger lurks in unexpected corners of everyday apartment buildings. But in this unforgettable collection, translated by the acclaimed Anton Hur, Chung’s absurd, haunting universe could be our own, illuminating the ills of contemporary society.

If the aesthetics of the book are the only thing of quality, think again; Cursed Bunny, is without any doubt, THE best short story collection I have read in a long time. South Korea’s Bora Chung’s short stories are brimming with horror, fairy tale elements and great doses of weirdness. This is a world where heads emerge from toilets, orphans acquire unknown superpowers, rabbits cause financial ruin and foxes bleed gold. Godammnit! I liked this one. It's about greed and how everything has a price. I was gasping at the twists in this short story. CHUNG: Well, when I was 28, I had an ovarian cyst, and my period wouldn't stop. And I went to see a gynecologist. Well, I told my mom, and the first thing my mom said was, you're not married. You're not going to go see a gynecologist by yourself.With the very real risk of being called a party pooper, a spoil-sport, old-fashioned and worse, I think Bora Chung's short story collection is bitter, sour, cruel, depressing, and yes ultimately evil. I took the first story seriously thinking that she was making a strong comparison between the haves and have nots - but by the end I was laughing because of the un-erasable image of that woman emerging from the toilet, with her wet hair hanging over her face - The Ring, horror film 2002 - anyone? Ok, so she's climbing out of a tv. Billed as a weird collection of genre-bending short stories, the International Booker Prize shortlisted Cursed Bunny made waves in 2022 upon the release of its English translation. It received recognition for its bold, disturbing, and thought-provoking stories. Bora Chung undoubtedly has a vivid imagination. These stories cross many worlds and experiences, often with little to no context or explanation. For readers that can embrace that ambiguity, this will surely compel them. I am not such a reader. Well, if it is not another grim yet illuminating Asian literature. I was told how quirky this book would be, but my brain is still processing it the whole time (like wtf am I reading). In the ten short tales in this book, Chung masterfully combines elements of horror, fantasy, and magical realism to create a fresh and original take on 'genre-defying'.

Cursed Bunny is on relatively new press Honford Star , who specialize in translating literature from East Asia. They are a reader’s dream: They employ East Asian artists to design their covers, and the books themselves are published in East Asia and they are robust. Plus there’s French flaps (I can’t resist those) RASCOE: And I found the head, too. So "The Head" is about creations, and then "Embodiment" is about a girl who gets pregnant through her birth control somehow. She gets pregnant, and then it goes from there. There are a couple of Grimm-like fables, Snare being a most disquieting effort about a fox that bleeds gold. Unfortunately, the longest story in the book Scars is also the most tedious one, an M. Night Shyamalan type thing about a boy sacrificed to a monster to save a village. Contents The Head The Embodiment Cursed Bunny The Frozen Finger Snare Goodbye, My Love Scars Home Sweet Home Ruler of the Winds and Sands ReunionAn assorted collection of short stories by Bora Chung. The cover was enough reason for me to jump into it. Some really nice finds, some not. My toilet is no longer the safe place I once knew, and I’m never touching a bunny lamp no matter what. A great start with some really outstanding stories, the momentum gradually diminishing until by the end I was just eager to finish to move on. The first story (actually 2nd in the original) Head (머리) won the 1998 Yonsei Literature Prize, and was the author’s (successful) attempt to write a fantastical story in the style of Eastern European authors, the author herself having translated Bruno Schulz into Korean. It begins with a woman about to flush the toilet when she sees a head popping out, calling out to her ‘Mother’ The stories effectively mix genres (anti-realist would perhaps be a good label) and also horror with humour. This layout of the human mouth was hanging on the wall. I remember the five basic tastes that the human tongue can discern, written around the picture of the tongue. I was maybe five or six. One of the most captivating short stories that describes the complex emotions of selfishness, greed, and revenge is titled, “Cursed Bunny.” The story is told through the lens of a grandson whose grandfather repeatedly tells him the story of a “cursed bunny.” The story revolves around a cursed bunny lamp that was made for the grandfather’s friend. According to the grandfather, his friend’s distillery company was ruined by a greedy competitor who spread lies about their drinks. The grandfather explains that “they claimed that anyone who drank [their drinks] would become blind, lame, or even fatally poisoned. Sales for my grandfather’s friend took a nosedive.”

Extremely surprised this made the Man Booker International shortlist. I honestly have no idea how it managed it. The blurb informs that this is a 'genre-defying collection of short stories' that blur the lines between 'magical realism, horror and science-fiction,' which sounded instantly like something I would love. Not the case. Firstly, the prose is bland, so horribly bland. By the third story I was questioning the talent of the writer. I've read an Anton Hur translation before and enjoyed it so that's why I exclude them. The stories themselves, despite sounding fantastic, were on the most part just simply terrible. Ruler of the Winds and Sands (바람과 모래의 지배자) takes us more in to the realm of legend, although with a science-fiction flavour. And the final story Reunion (재회) is set in Poland, with Polish text included (the author translates from the language) and is a love story of sorts with a ghostly twist. How to define the genre of this book? Maybe I would call it literary horror. Some stories have elements of fantasy others of SF, historical fiction, feminist literature but all share a horror flavour and are very well written (and translated). Most story dieal wtih some sort of trauma and some have a moral at the end. Home Sweet Home (즐거운 나의 집) beings with a dispute about property tax between a young couple who own a small mixed-used building and one of their tenants, owners of a blood-sausage stew (순대국집) restaurant. But the building, which they were sold at a 복덕방, an old fashioned term for an estate-agent’s office which Hur romanises as bokdeokbang and also translates literally as fortune gainer, has secrets of its own.In 2022, the English edition of her short story collection Cursed Bunny translated by Anton Hur was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. [2] The ten stories borrow from different genres, including magical realism, horror and science fiction. [1] [4] In September 2023 the book was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. [6] A girl whose brother feeds on her blood, robots that take revenge on their owner and a bunny lamp with a deadly curse. Those are some of the bizarre, twisted plot lines in "Cursed Bunny," Bora Chung's first collection of short stories to appear in English, which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. It was translated from Korean by Anton Hur. Author Bora Chung joins us now to talk about her collection. Welcome to the show. Anton Hur (AH):I was actually looking for a book that was Korean and was speculative fiction because I really wanted to work in a genre that I loved reading in. I mean, before then, I was doing these very big, heavy historical books, which are fine, but not necessarily something that I am always reading since a child.