The Pain Chasers

International Booker Prize-shortlisted Bora Chung creates a remarkably fresh dystopia-within-a-utopia that explores the inextricable link between humanity and suffering.

Kyobo bookstore synopsis run through Microsoft’s translation engine: A new work by author Bora Chung, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Cursed Bunny and shocked readers not only in Korea but also around the world, is published by Dasan Books. The Pain Chasers is the first full-length novel to be released four years after Red Sword, and the detailed and fierce setting, chilling sentences, and dark and flashing thoughts unique to Bora Chung stand out even more. The story begins with a conflict between a pharmaceutical company that created the painkiller ‘NSTRA-14’ that neutralized pain and a religious group that claims that pain leads to human salvation. Through the fascinating tool of possibility called information, the novel dissects the roots of the sense of ‘pain’ piece by piece, providing readers with both philosophical insights and the pleasure of a story that relentlessly pierces the inner world.