Bora Chung translates modern literary works from Russian and Polish into Korean and writes generally unrealistic stories. Among her works, Cursed Bunny, a collection of short stories, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022 and was a finalist for National Book Awards in 2023. She is currently an active member of the Science Fiction Writers Union of Korea.
1. Life
Bora Chung was born in Seoul. She completed her undergraduate studies in English and Russian literature at Yonsei University and holds an M.A. in Russian and East European studies from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Slavic literatures from Indiana University.
Her first short story, "The Head" (머리) won the 1998 Yonsei Literature Prize. She won the 3rd Digital Writers' Awards' Distinction Award in 2008 for her novella "The Fox" (호), and her short story "The Seed" (씨앗) won second prize at the 2014 Gwacheon Science Center SF Awards. Chung's stories are often dark and magical narratives about strong women who fight to survive in an unjust, violent world. Her short story collection Cursed Bunny was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.
Her translations include The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Seven Churches by Miloš Urban, and The Marriage by Witold Gombrowicz. She currently serves as president of the Science Fiction Writers Union of Korea (SFWUK).
2. Writing
Bora Chung fell in love with strange, fantastic stories by Eastern European writers while majoring in Russian language and literature in college. The International Booker shortlisted Cursed Bunny, originally published in 2017 and in English in 2021, contains a total of ten short stories ranging from dark fairy tales to stark revenge fables and disturbing body horror.
"The Head"(머리) follows a woman haunted by her own bodily waste. "The Embodiment"(몸하다) 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 the force of his own power.
The titular fable centers on a cursed lamp in the approachable shape of a rabbit, fit for a child’s bedroom but for its sinister capabilities. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and the surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.
Compared to the relatively restrained tone and language adopted in Cursed Bunny, Chung's most recent novel Red Sword(붉은칼, 2019) is a much more spectacular and dreamy war story. The heavily action-based narrative takes place in outer space and centers on the prisoners of an empire who are thrown into a war as cannon fodder against white, never-before-seen aliens. The novel is based on the 17th century Sino-Russian border conflict, in which the Qing dynasty sought reinforcements from the Joseon dynasty to combat the Russians. The author asks the true meaning of the struggle as the protagonists continue bloody, savage battles against the unknown without knowing why, but still attempting to maintain their dignity. The heroes I know in this turbulent age are not generals commanding thousands of men under arms but those ordinary yet brave folks who jump into a seemingly endless struggle and never let go of the hands of the person next to them, Chung writes in the author's afterword.
