Cursed Bunny: Shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize

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Absurdism is alive in this deeply disturbing story that criticizes so many social aspects like masculinity, legacy and more and the ending is. The style varies wildly: ‘Goodbye, My Love’, a tale of AI gone awry, wouldn’t be out of place in an Alexander Weinstein collection; ‘Ruler of the Winds and Sands’ reads like a forgotten fairytale; ‘Reunion’, less outlandish than the others, is a subdued story of ghosts and twisted love set in Poland.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Covering subjects such as beauty, pregnancy and child birth, consumerism, love, revenge, every action has a reaction and the meaning of life itself. a bunch of my favorite subjects in one: ghosts, sadness, the meaning of life, people-watching, lovers. I believe readers of horror might find some of the later stories a wan imitation of things they have read before.Having said that, I had some wickedly entertaining discussions with my buddy and two of my co-workers who were enticed to read the first two stories when I wouldn’t shut up about them! She is advised by the staff that her baby will only develop properly if she finds a father for it, so embarks on a series of ill-fated matchmaking dates - 선, which Hur romanises as seon. At their best, though, these stories use a vocabulary of the grotesque to articulate truths about female bodies, living in a patriarchy, and the brutal vampiric logic of capitalism. If you are a thrill seeker and have ever frequented amusement parks, then you may know that it’s best to save your favorite, most exhilarating rides for the end.

This book gave me chills several times as well as made me rather uncomfortable in ways that truly capture the power of a well-written story. The first thing that stands out about Cursed Bunny is Bora Chung’s fluency in the language of the grotesque.Bora Chung deftly moves from haunted house stories ( Home Sweet Home) to surreal thrillers ( The Frozen Finger) to even a story about uncanny valley aspects of AI without causing the reader any whiplash (the sci-fi story, Goodbye, My Love is arguably less fresh than some but still charming).

It is also great to see the translators named on the front cover, and the Korean title and author’s name, written in 한글 (hangeul) on the flaps. The premise of "Ruler of the Winds and Sands" was cool, but again, Chung just butchered it with boring prose and a rubbish ending. She goes to great lengths to satisfy someone and is betrayed in the end for it, having merely been a pawn in the game. I have the feeling my four-star rating for this book may be a bit overgenerous but I wanted to celebrate its uniqueness, the author's artistry at the grotesque, surrealist imagery and quirky humour evident even in the title of the collection. When the rabbits unleashed by the fetish begin to “multiply and chew up everything in sight” in myriad, nightmarish ways, they are a potent metaphor for not only the relentless, corrosive desire for vengeance but also capitalist greed.I think the lack of pretentious similise and metaphors gives it a feeling of bluntness to cut the author in the gut and to get them to really understand what the story is about. Un gran comienzo con unas verdaderamente sobresalientes historias, el impulso gradualmente disminuyendo hasta que para el final solo deseaba terminar para seguir con otra cosa. There are hints of the absurd and the surreal woven through Chung’s narratives which she highlights through twists on vampirism, magical transformations, and mystical, doppelganger-like figures.

Okay, maybe I’m getting carried away with this silly analogy, because Bora Chung does have a clever mind and quite the imagination. Both these stories while confronting were unique and asked some interesting questions about a woman's place in a patriarchal society.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. I liked the kind of sharp critique creeping through this intro, along with a very visual kind of storytelling. My body was created with the things you dumped down the toilet, like your fallen-out hair and the feces you wiped off your behind. The reason I gave it four stars instead of five is that the quality of the short tales diminished after the first five, but each story is distinctive in its own way. Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here.