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. The scatological and profane swim together in Cursed Bunny. Originally published in 2017, this is South Korean author Bora Chung’s first work to be translated into English. Chung takes aim at capitalism, misogyny and the social obsessions with youth and beauty through these stories, which fluidly cross genres from science fiction to traditional fable structures.’

An 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. BRIANNA HIRAMI WRITES — You may have been able to guess by the eerie-looking bunny presented in inverted colors on the cover that this tale is anything but light and happy. Bora Chung’s fascinating and unique short story collection, Cursed Bunny , displays the most disturbing truths about the nature of mankind through a fantastical yet realistic narrative. By including ten short stories, Chung is easily able to capture the reader’s full attention by making her audience feel disgusted and uncomfortable, yet highly intrigued and captivated. This slender beast of a book contains many themes that leave a lasting impression on the reader that may cause them to need a deep breath – and maybe even a drink – between stories. 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. Basically, I decided while standing there at the book fair that I wanted to translate this book. So I asked the person who was selling the book, I would like to meet the author or the publisher of this book because I want to ask them for translation rights. The person who was selling the books happened to be Bora Chung herself, who was helping out at the booth at the time. So I feel like it was fate. It was fate that I translated this book. Another story that implicitly comments on the theme of selfishness is “Ruler of the Winds and Sands.” This story follows a blind prince and a benevolent princess that are soon to be wedded. The blind prince’s father claims that a sorcerer, known as the master of the golden ship, cursed the father’s lineage for cutting off the sorcerer’s arm in war. Three months before the princess and the prince’s wedding, the prince explains to his fiancé the story of the sorcerer and how their children will also be born blind. The nervous princess then sneaks out of the castle and with great courage asks the sorcerer to lift the curse for the prince and their future children. The sorcerer complies with her request, but says that he did not curse their family, but rather, ‘“they were cursed because they started the war. The air from the horizon to the sun and moon is a place man may not rule. My ship has sailed peacefully in that air since the dawn of time. It was the king of the desert blinded by his greed for gold, who first drew his weapon.”’

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I was ready to DNF after this one. This is pointless and confusing. What a long way of saying that you shouldn't spread hate because it will consume you. Other stories read like a series of cautionary tales against capitalist greed: the title story tells of the slow, traumatic demise of a corporation’s CEO and his family after he is gifted a cursed object in revenge for his unsavoury business actions. And in ‘Snare’ the greed takes the form of the exploitation of natural resources: a down-and-out man finds a trapped fox that happens to bleed golden blood; he keeps the fox alive to sell its blood and begins to enjoy a life of riches with his new young family. But what follows is an unfolding of further gruesome events that lead to murder, cannibalism and incest. What do you call a nightmare you can’t wake up from? A living hell? The Head” follows a woman haunted by her own bodily waste. “The Embodiment” takes us into a dystopian gynecology office where a pregnant woman is told that she must find a father for her baby or face horrific consequences. Another story follows a young monster, forced into underground fight rings without knowing his own power. The titular fable centers on a cursed lamp in the shape of a rabbit, fit for a child’s bedroom but for its sinister capabilities.

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. Bora Chung’s first English translated work, Cursed Bunny, is one of several literary works that remind the reader about the harsh cruelties of the world that are often difficult to swallow. Along with publishing three novels and two other short story collections, she also translates modern literary works from Russian and Polish into Korean. None of her other works have been translated into English yet, but Cursed Bunny is an incredible beginning for English readers to understand complex ideologies from Chung’s perspective.

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The desperation and immense fear that your life, as well as the future to come, hinged on a moment. I could also understand how, in a situation where there was a single person who could kill you but also save you, all your survival instincts would be used towards satisfying that person.’ A stunning, wildly original debut from a rising star of Korean literature—surreal, chilling fables that take on the patriarchy, capitalism, and the reign of big tech with absurdist humor and a (sometimes literal) bite. 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)

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.Like all great stories, there’s a lot of meaning contained in the strangeness. Generally when Bora Chung’s characters become greedy for power, money or social gain they will suffer. Badly. Since these stories are structured like fairy-tales it makes a lot of sense that there is a moral tale embedded within the text.

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. There is absolutely no reason this needed to be this damn long. And all this misery for what? He overcomes the evil so easily and then the story just ends and I am confused and unsatisfied. 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. Throughout the story, the woman’s concerns about the head are ignored by her family, who encourage her to leave the head alone and tell her it’s not a big deal. Her family refuses to validate her fears. Eventually, the woman capitulates, allowing the head to coexist unmolested. RASCOE: But the thing I also thought was that men could decide whether they wanted to be a father or not, whereas the woman in this case who was pregnant just had to deal with it. I mean, obviously, can get an abortion or whatever, but in this case, the woman was having the baby, and she didn't have a choice in that. She couldn't decide whether she wanted to be pregnant or not in this story, right? Whereas the men were able to say, I don't know what I want to do. Right?Seminary Offsets Honors the Literary History of Chicago’s South Side with the Reissue of “Divine Days” If I’m being vague about these stories it is because they are best read with no idea what is coming. Each takes a surprising turn that is less a twist-ending and more a natural and well-earned sudden shift in perspective or revealed information that makes you feel like the floor has dropped out from under you. This book gave me chills several times as well as made me rather uncomfortable in ways that truly capture the power of a well-written story. CHUNG: I have no idea. I never imagined my book would reach anywhere outside Korea. So this is all very unreal to me. I feel like I'm in the middle of my own story, and my own stories don't really have a happy ending, so I'm probably in trouble. I don't know.