Description
In a labyrinthine research facility where those who open the wrong door might find it's disappeared behind them, or that the echoing footsteps they're running from are their own, an unnamed protagonist begins their night shift under the watchful eye of the building's enigmatic senior guard.
Each evening, as the fluorescent lights hum and the silence grows heavier, the guard shares another story - of cursed objects hidden behind security glass, of lives unspooled by vengeance, sorrow or revelation. These tales are not mere ghost stories. They're warnings. Lessons. Or perhaps confessions.
As the nights stretch on and reality frays, the protagonist starts to suspect that the building itself is alive with malevolent intent - that the objects aren't just cursed, but waiting. Watching.
Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny and deeply political, The Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time's greatest imaginations.
'Disturbing, chilling, wrenching, and absolute genius' Frances Cha on Cursed Bunny
About the Author
Bora Chung is a writer and translator whose works include the National Book Award finalist and International Booker Prize-shortlisted Cursed Bunny. She has an MA in Russian Studies from Yale University and a PhD in Slavic literature from Indiana University. She has taught Russian language and literature and science fiction at Yonsei University and translates modern literary works from Russian and Polish into Korean.
Anton Hur was born in Stockholm and currently resides in Seoul. He won a PEN Translates grant for his translation of The Underground Village by Kang Kyeong-ae and a PEN/Heim grant for Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny, the latter of which was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. His translation of Sang Young Park's Love in the Big City was longlisted for the same prize in the same year. His translation of Violets was longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Awards. He has taught at the British Centre for Literary Translation, the Ewha University Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, and the Bread Loaf Translators Conference. His writing is published in Words Without Borders, Asymptote Journal, Litro, and others.
Reviews
Beautiful, eerie stories that are unpredictable and sprawl endlessly. -- Kang Hwa-gil, author of ANOTHER PERSON
The keen insights into a society and the nonstop pacing of the folk tales kept me on the edge of my seat. -- Kim Bo-Young, author of National Book Award-longlisted ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES AND OTHER STORIES
Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny mines those places where what we fear is true and what is true meet and separate and re-meet. The resulting stories are indelible. Haunting, funny, gross, terrifying-and yet when we reach the end, we just want more. -- Alexander Chee
Bora Chung's stories glisten at the border of our weird world, and all our other weird worlds. A truly sublime book. -- Samantha Hunt on Your Utopia
Chung builds out her stories with imagination, absurdity and a dry sense of humor, all applied with X-Acto knife precision * New York Times Book Review on Your Utopia *
A] get-under-your-skin collection * LitHub on Cursed Bunny *
Frightening, fantastical, and oddly funny... absurdist horror with a feminist slant. * PEN America on Cursed Bunny *
Book Information
ISBN 9780349705170
Author Bora Chung
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Dialogue Books
Publisher John Murray Press
Details
Imprint: |
Dialogue Books |
