**One of TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024, and Kirkus Reviews’ Best Fiction of 2024**
“Chung builds out her stories with imagination, absurdity and a dry sense of humor, all applied with X-Acto knife precision.” ―Alexandra Kleeman, The New York Times Book Review
"Inventive tales... offer an absurd look into a distant future... With a touch of melancholy, Chung explores the psychological and sociological effects that advanced technology may have on humankind, while also encouraging readers to imagine, as she writes in her author’s note, 'a better world for both you and me." - TIME Magazine, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024
“Chung has crafted another weird and surprising story collection…Central to the collection is an exploration of loneliness and isolation, but Chung is far too complex a writer to simply blame technology for these shortcomings… She plays with our expectations of the future, experiments with the possibilities of what could be, and sprinkles in elements from other genres to keep the stories fresh.” - Chicago Review of Books
“Imagining a utopia and mourning when it falls short are the first steps toward creating a better world. A big job for fiction; Chung’s up to the task. The imagined worlds here may not be utopian—but the reading experience is.” - Kirkus Reviews
“Hur returns as Chung’s brilliant Korean-to-English cipher for eight more enigmatically irresistible stories… Chung’s electrifying author’s note offers provenance for many of her stories and an empathic invitation to progress 'toward a better world for both you and me.'” *STARRED REVIEW* - Booklist
Bora Chung’s inimitable blend of horror, absurdity, and dark humor reaches its peak in these tales of loss and discovery, dystopia and idealism, death and immortality. In a thrilling translation by the acclaimed Anton Hur, readers will experience a variety of possible fates for humanity, from total demise via a disease whose only symptom is casual cannibalism to a world in which even dreams can be monitored and used to convict people of crimes.
In “The Center for Immortality Research,” a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors only to be blamed for the chaos that ensues during the event in front of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. In “A Song for Sleep,” an AI elevator in an apartment complex develops a tender, one-sided love for an elderly resident. “Seed” traverses the final frontier of capitalism’s destruction of the planet—but nature always creeps back to life.