Cursed Bunny: Shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize

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Several other stories in the collection are also about the exploitation of the disadvantaged by the power hungry — most notably “Snare,” in which a man discovers a fox with golden blood and begins to harvest it; and “Scars,” where a boy is abused first by a literal monster, then by monstrous humans. She had flushed the toilet and was washing her hands when she caught sight of, through the mirror, the head peeping out from the toilet in her stall. He said he would figure out how to mass produce the taste of wine that was distilled by hand from hardsteamed rice. There is little offered in the way of hope, or grace, or relief, especially in the Cronenberg-esque body horror of some of the more visceral stories, but with Hur’s crisp clean translation of Chung’s effective, simple language, it is hard to stop reading.

She lists as her literary influences the works of Park Wan-suh, Bruno Schulz, Bruno Jasieński, Andrei Platonov and Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, [2] as well as Samguk yusa folktales. The very company that had spread the lies about “industrial-use alcohol” bought out its ruined competitor at far below market value. One day, just as she was about to close the toilet lid, she caught a glimpse of the head peering out of the hole. The very first story is about a head appearing in a woman’s toilet, and she treats it with blatant disregard.She only felt a slight twisting or trembling inside of her, but these weren’t the sensations of a baby kicking inside her womb. And because the son of the rich, landed distillery family considered Grandfather a friend, the other children came to accept Grandfather as well. Corporate greed comes into play, as does the hunger for generational revenge—Chung isn’t taking sides here: there is sadness and loss for both families involved in the curse. Even if he were lying, and it was true she was a little suspicious, she found herself liking the overall impression he gave off as a person.

I only want so little,” the head hastily added, “I’m only asking that you keep dumping your body waste in the toilet so I can finish creating the rest of my body. When they gain this humanist sense of the world, the robots link together, stab their owner and leave her to die, and then flee to live betters lives out in the world.But the well of thought taps a deep spring, and no matter how much she tried to bail them out, her thoughts kept overflowing the brim … Then one night, she went to the bathroom. His drunk grandfather, upon hearing what the boy said to him about wanting a strange object in the warehouse, told him to go ahead before turning back to drinking with the important adults. Not just does she play it straight, but so do her characters—everyone other than the woman to whom this is happening seems least concerned.

Mark my words, today will seem like a distant memory soon enough …” The woman’s voice trailed off as she gazed into the distance. The back of her head felt like it would split in half from the pain, and she felt a strong urge to throw up. At its core was the government’s insistence that Korea secure its rice supply, and the use of rice in the fermenting of spirits was subsequently forbidden. Whether they were tears of relief, sadness from losing the baby, or of something else entirely, she herself couldn’t tell.There was an old man sitting there, and two men wearing sunglasses standing at attention behind him.