Bora Chung (born 1976) is a South Korean writer and translator. Her collection of short stories, Cursed Bunny, was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.
| Korean name | |
 Bora Chung at Quais du Polar, Lyon in 2023. | |
| Korean name | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 정보라 |
| Revised Romanization | Jeong Bora |
| McCune–Reischauer | Chŏng Pora |
Life and career edit
Bora Chung was born in 1976, in Seoul.[1] Her parents were dentists.[2] She completed graduate studies in Russian and East European area studies at Yale University, then went on to gain a PhD in Slavic literature from Indiana University.[1][3] She taught the Russian language, literature and science fiction studies at Yonsei University.[1][4] She is a social activist.[4]
Chung has written three novels and three collections of short stories.[4][3] 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.[4] In 1998, she won a Yonsei Literature Prize for her short story The Head.[5] She is also a recipient of second prizes at the Digital Literature Awards (2008) and Gwacheon Science Center SF Awards (2014).[5]
In 2022, the English edition of her short story collection Cursed Bunny translated by Anton Hur was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.[2] The ten stories borrow from different genres, including magical realism, horror and science fiction.[1][4] In September 2023 the book was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature.[6]
In January 2024, another short story collection of hers, Your Utopia, came out in English translation, as did the novella Grocery List from Hanuman Books in June 2024,[7] both also translated into English by Anton Hur, who has announced that her novel, Red Sword, will be published in English translation in 2025.[8] Another novel of hers, Midnight Timetable, will be published in English translation in 2026.[9] All will be rendered by Hur.
Chung translates contemporary prose from Russian and Polish into Korean.[1][3]
References edit
- ^ a b c d e "Bora Chung". The Booker Prizes. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
- ^ a b c "Discover the shortlist: Bora Chung, 'This is the nicest dream I ever had'". The Booker Prizes. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
- ^ a b c "Fictional Notes toward an Essay on Translation". Asymptote. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
- ^ a b c d e Hong, Beth Eunhee (2022-03-30). "[Herald Interview] 'Cursed Bunny' author Bora Chung on writing from the margins". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
- ^ a b "Bora Chung". Smoking Tigers. 2019-03-18. Retrieved 2022-05-26.
- ^ "The 2023 National Book Awards Longlist: Translated Literature". The New Yorker. September 13, 2023. Retrieved September 14, 2023.
- ^ https://hanumaneditions.com/books/grocery-list-bora-chung
- ^ Hur, Anton. Twitter https://twitter.com/AntonHur/status/1774797943876579565. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Bayley, Sian. "Bora Chung moves to Dialogue with new novel, The Midnight Timetable". The Bookseller.