Title: Cursed Bunny
Author: Bora Chung
Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur
Publisher: Honford Star
ISBN: 978-1916277182
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 256
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5
The best part about this book is that you cannot place it under any genre, and yet just to simplify it, I put it under a basic genre, that of short stories. These short stories are not just any run-of-the-mill stories though. There is so much more than what meets the eye.
Horror, magic realism, supernatural, the weird, folklore blending with the contemporary storytelling, and then of course the literary that slow slips into the prose.
Bora Chung’s stories may be bizarre but they after all only reflect the society, we live in. From the loneliness of people that need droids, to the idea of parenthood and self and ultimately how the two interweave, to the exploitation of people in a capitalistic world, each story resonates on different levels.
Yes, the stories are grotesque. Yes, the element of horror in these stories is perhaps a little more, and yes, some narratives may seem similar than most – the bottom-line being, Chung’s stories also work, because of the exquisite translation by Anton Hur.
The stories could’ve fallen flat to their face in English if it weren’t for the translator, given the landscape in which they are set. Each story is heavily nuanced, and culturally unique to the place, and that to translate to English, so readers get it all, is the work of an expert, which Anton is. No word seems out of place, nothing jarring in a sentence, and the emotions remain the same. Where I had to feel horror, I did. Where I had to feel pity, I did.
Cursed Bunny is all about placing the overlooked and the ignored at the center of things. From monsters to androids to ghosts to sometimes what comes out of us as well is exaggerated and placed in contexts for all to see, in all its glory or not.
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