A warm, hearty bowl of rice made lovingly for the most important person in his life. The only catch? The rice is plastic. It was a few days after she left. I had run out of the instant rice I always kept on hand for emergencies and was contemplating going out to eat when the … [Read More]
Booklist: Short Stories (page 2)
Waltzing with Mosquitoes
A mosquito lies in wait until the perfect moment. One must be measured and patient in this battle of wits—rarely is the fool who moves first ultimately victorious. It was a rainy spring day when I first witnessed the mosquito’s waltz through my open window. It moved lyrically through the air, dodging raindrops perfectly in … [Read More]
Table for One
An office worker who has no one to eat lunch with enrolls in a course that builds confidence about eating alone. A man with a pathological fear of bedbugs offers up his body to save his building from infestation. A time capsule in Seoul is dug up hundreds of years before it was intended to … [Read More]
Patterns of the Heart and Other Stories
Korean writer Ch’oe Myŏngik was a lifelong resident of Pyongyang, a city his short stories masterfully evoke in exquisite modernist prose. His career spanned decades of tumult, from his debut in the 1930s while Korea was under Japanese colonial rule through the Asia-Pacific and Korean Wars and the early years of the Democratic People’s Republic. … [Read More]
The Daily Prophet
I had never distrusted Big Data. I accepted all its decisions and walked the path it laid out for me. Even the date of my birth had been set to the most optimal day through machine learning. My entire life, I lived without doubt. But as time went on, I lost vigor. Life slowly drained … [Read More]
The Butterfly Disease
One night, a giant butterfly shadow sweeps over a city and its inhabitants. Most people rise the next morning to a day just like any other. Some, however, never wake up. Afflicted with the Butterfly Disease, they lose themselves in a series of pleasant dreams that always end in death. As always the sun began … [Read More]
Blurred Lines
Sleeping pills. Sleep. A dream. The dream world is almost like reality, but not quite. The sun is bright, but not warm. People’s faces shift and morph. Most importantly, in this world, he can do whatever he wants without consequence. The man, as always, is tending to the camellia bush in the yard and I, … [Read More]
Your Utopia
By the internationally acclaimed author of Cursed Bunny, in another thrilling translation from the Korean by Anton Hur, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. “Nothing concentrates the mind like Chung’s terrors, which will shrivel you to a bouillon cube of your most primal instincts” (Vulture), yet these stories … [Read More]
Molting
In college, I began fixating on my appearance. I obsessed over my large, round nose, lamented how it threw off the balance of my entire face, didn’t go with any of my outfits, and even seemed to wobble about on my face whenever I ran. It had no redeeming qualities except for the functions every … [Read More]
The Butterfly Dance
What would a man do to win over the woman of his dreams? What if there was a way, an ancient and mystical method sent down straight from the gods, to gain the undying devotion of any woman on Earth? Mijin. Just a minute. Stay still for just a minute. I don’t want to have … [Read More]
Pehera’s Curse
What do we worship, and what do we curse? In a dark cave atop a cliff in a forgotten village lives the last remaining butterfly… I am me. If you think of me as a butterfly, then yes, I may just be a butterfly. Yuhi Kim is a young scientist who studies the legendary butterfly … [Read More]
At Night he Lifts Weights
A disquieting vision of ecological dystopia in a collection by a major Korean writer. An artist is plagued by desire for her mysterious double as disease spreads through an uncanny suburban landscape. An elderly woman suspects the old man who lifts weights in her neighborhood playground of being responsible for a spate of murders. While … [Read More]
The Governor’s Case File
In a peaceful village in Joseon Korea, the newly appointed governor is startled to learn that all the butterflies have disappeared. He proceeds to investigate the peculiar case in this poignant short story that is at once historical fiction and cozy mystery. On a peaceful spring day, the young governor is looking forward to a … [Read More]
A Century of Queer Korean Fiction
Following decades of LGBTQ+ activism, South Korea has seen a flowering of queer literature, film, and Internet culture. Many openly gay, lesbian, transgender, and other queer Korean writers find themselves in the national and international spotlight. But the rich variety of queer representation also extends into the Korean past, as this volume illustrates. Beginning with … [Read More]
Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories
A woman is born. A woman is filmed in public without consent. A woman suffers domestic violence. A woman is gaslit. A woman is discriminated against at work. A woman grows old. A woman becomes famous. A woman is hated, and loved, and then hated again. Written in Cho Nam-Joo’s masterful, razor-sharp prose, Miss Kim … [Read More]
Knockoff Viagra & Jeje
“I had been called to pick up Jeje from a karaoke bar in Jongno district…” A deftly expressive short modern love story concerning the misadventures of Hyoung and Jeje as they navigate the Seoul underworld in search of something more from life with lots to say about our contemporary moment; how people use and are used by others, but … [Read More]