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Encounter with Beings from Beyond: Korean Horror Fiction scrap download

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Horror fiction is fundamentally a literary genre that explores boundaries. Fear arises from the overlapping spaces between light and shadow, life and death, and reason and irrationality. As the midday sun retreats, darkness descends, concealing whatever may lurk within; when the vitality of living things fades, the heavyweight of death takes its place. And just when we grow complacent, believing that everything in our daily lives operates within the realm of scientific logic, supernatural phenomena occur, causing the carefully constructed order of human existence to fall into disarray. To cope with the fear born from these unsettling experiences, people have long gathered around midnight campfires to craft stories.


Koreans who grew up watching 20th century TV programs such as Korean Ghost Stories, which combined horror narratives with folklore and moral lessons,tend to define horror genre as stories about visitors from the afterlife or another world. While contemporary Korean novelists inherit this tradition, they focus more on horror that stems from the malevolence hidden within ordinary life and spreads into supernatural terror. In the 21st century, a time when science reigns and the world never sleeps, the fear of familiar, nearby threats feels more vivid than the distant fear of the unknown.


For this reason, horror literature is also a genre for the marginalized. Minorities who have lived in the shadows of fear—immigrants, people with disabilities, and women—gain the power to fight back beyond the bounds of rational logic in the world of horror. Just as traditional ghost stories featured unjustly murdered women returning as vengeful spirits, today’s horror narratives depict oppressors who turn reality into a living hell while also showcasing courageous underdogs who stand against them. Are ghosts terrifying? No, there are humans far more terrifying. The upheaval of the world is frightening, but there may be souls who find more peace in a world turned upside down.


The Heavens Don’t Listen to Women (by Kim Isak)


This novel,bearing a title that holds a feminist provocation, presents five stories infused with elements of traditional folktales and urban legends. In the first story, “Seongjudanji,” a woman flees to a small provincial city to escape her ex-boyfriend’s stalking. There, in an old traditional house, she encounters a mysterious figure. Caught between real-life danger and supernatural terror, it is the ghost that ultimately provides her with a sense of security. In Korean folk beliefs, deities have traditionally served as upholders of patriarchal systems, but in this novel, the author rejects such traditions and instead portrays various forms of supernatural guardians who stand with oppressed women, children, and the weak.


Designated Driver (by Lee Narae)


As Doyun prepares for his civil service exam, his friend approaches him with a request:to work as a designated driver while pretending to be hearing-impaired. One day, he hears strange noises emanating from the trunk of the car he’s driving. While Doyun is torn between his sense of obligation to save someone and the guilt of working illegally as a designated driver, the tension inside the car continues to escalate. Befitting the work of a writer with a background in writing screenplays, Designated Driver is characterized by the breakneck pace of a thriller and the vivid sensation of being seated in a taxi. The story evokes extreme fear through its chilling depiction of pure evil, without relying on a single supernatural element.


Dark Waters (by Jeon Geonwu)


Korean local legends and ghost stories inherently possess the characteristics of mystery novels because they involve the vengeful spirits of those who died unjustly. In this tale, a broadcast writer with psychometric abilities and a young shaman visit a rural village to film a show about water spirits, only to find themselves embroiled in a murder case. The narrative skillfully merges supernatural fantasy with the eerie atmosphere of Korean folklore and the intrigue of a murder within a closed-off community. What lurks beneath the dark waters? Is it a malevolent spirit waiting for its prey, or a vengeful soul sacrificed to the collective selfishness of the village? Whatever the answer may be, readers need be beware of being dragged into its depths.


Midnight Schedule (by Chung Bora)


Chung Bora,author of Cursed Bunny, showcases her skill in blending the conventions of horror and fantasy with an unexpected imagination. Her creativity often mirrors reality like a reflection in a mirror. Midnight Schedule is a collection of interconnected short stories set in a research institute that stores objects that shouldn’t exist in this world. The novel has the characteristics of a manual ghost story, a sub-category of the horror genre where there are rules or guidelines. For instance, when encountering an ordinary but strange night watchman in front of the underground parking lot, one should not react, or when passing by Room 502 with a strange handkerchief, do not look back, and so on. The research institute, where many implicit rules exist, is a gray space inhabited by animals and objects that don’t belong to this world.The stories in the novel are spooky, but at the same time evoke a sense of warm compassion.


The Ghost of Jeoksangaok (by ChoYeeun)


This novel tells the story of a woman who inherits a jeoksangaok (a house of the enemy)from her great-grandmother. In her dream, she travels back to 1945 and becomes her great-grandmother, witnessing a bleeding boy who shows her a destructive future or a history that has already taken place. The jeoksangaok, which refers to a house left built and left behind by the enemy, serves as the perfect setting for Korean Gothic horror. All Gothic horror stories revolve around a large, oppressive mansion, and in the context of Korean history—interrupted by the Japanese occupation—these Japanese style mansions are naturally jeoksangaok. Cho Yeeun transforms the colonial history of invasion and exploitation into ominous dreams, breaking down the boundary between fantasy and reality while faithfully reviving the Gothic horror tradition. Her novel is rich with a classic Gothic atmosphere, yet it also engages with contemporary social concerns.

 

Written by Park Hyunjoo


Park is a novelist, essayist, critic, and literary translator. She has written novels such as My Occult Days 1 & 2, At 2 a.m. Laundromat, and Searching for Honey man (Romancing on Jeju), as well as essays like The Romance Pharmacy and The Safe Distance Between You and Me. She has also translated a wide range of works, including those by authors such as Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, and Charles Bukowski. Park regularly contributes fiction and critical essays to various media outlets. She currently writes the series Park Hyun-joo’s “Genre Fiction Reading” for Hankyoreh newspaper and appears on a TV critic program on MBC.


Translated by Soyoung Kim


Soyoung is a translator specializing in literature and film. After a decade of corporate life in public relations, she now immerses in translating works that resonate with her. Her recent translations include stage plays Sunlight Shower and This is Home by Jang Woojae, and she is currently translating a novel for young adults. Soyoung majored in English interpretation and translation at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and studied business administration at the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University. She completed a two-year government-funded literary translation course at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea). Soyoung won Grand Prize in the film category of the Media Translation Contest organized by LTI Korea in 2021.

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