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Bora Chung

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chung Bora
Chung at the Quais du Polar, Lyon in 2023
Born1976 (age 49–50)
Seoul, South Korea
EducationYonsei University (BA)
Yale University (MA)
Indiana University Bloomington (PhD)[1]
OccupationsAuthor, activist
Writing career
LanguageKorean
Years active2008–present
Genres
Chung Bora
Hangul
정보라
RRJeong Bora
MRChŏng Pora

Chung Bora (born 1976) is a South Korean writer and translator. Her collection of short stories, Cursed Bunny, was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.[2][3]

Early life and education

[edit]

Chung Bora was born in 1976, in Seoul, South Korea.[2] Her parents were dentists.[3] 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 Bloomington.[2][4] She taught the Russian language, literature, and science fiction studies at Yonsei University.[2][5]

Career

[edit]

Chung has written three novels and three collections of short stories.[5][4] She lists as her literary influences the works of Park Wan-suh, Bruno Schulz, Bruno Jasieński, Andrei Platonov and Lyudmila Petrushevskaya,[3] as well as Samguk yusa folktales.[5] In 1998, she won a Yonsei Literature Prize for her short story The Head.[6] She is also a recipient of second prizes at the Digital Literature Awards (2008) and Gwacheon Science Center SF Awards (2014).[6]

In 2022, the English edition of her short story collection Cursed Bunny translated by Anton Hur was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.[3] The ten stories borrow from different genres, including magical realism, horror and science fiction.[2][5] In September 2023 the book was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature.[7]

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,[8] both were translated by Anton Hur. Hur announced that Chung's third novel, Red Sword, will be published in English translation in 2025.[9] Her fourth novel, Midnight Timetable, will also be translated into English by Hur, published in 2026.[10]

Red Sword and Midnight Timetable were both finalists for the 2026 Locus Award for Best Translated Novel.[11]

Chung translates contemporary prose from Russian and Polish into Korean.[2][4]

Political views

[edit]

Chung is a social activist, advocating for LGBTQ and women's rights.[5][12] She has spoken out about the need for the inclusion of the themes of minority groups in modern science fiction.[13]

Following Russia's invasion on Ukraine in 2022, Chung expressed her support for Ukraine and Poland for the support of Ukrainian refugees.[14] During the Gaza war, Chung condemned Israel's action and expressed her support for Palestine; she also signed a letter calling for boycott of Israel.[15][16]

Chung has criticised artificial intelligence, stating "From what I read, human beings really don't understand what we created, and artificial intelligence and deep learning, machine learning, all these things are structured so that the machine would accumulate experience and data and information and analyze them and draw conclusions more like human beings do. So that means our prejudices, our misconceptions, our own hate and misunderstanding and discrimination is part of the data human beings created. So technology is not impartial. Information is not neutral. And that is backfiring. And that will backfire. But probably engineers don't agree with me. So yeah, I'm afraid of machines."[17][18]

Bibliography

[edit]

Novels

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  • The Door Opened. 2010.
  • Dreams of the Dead. 2012.
  • Red Sword. 2019.
  • Midnight Timetable : A Novel in Ghost Stories. Translated by Anton Hur. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books. 2025.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

Short fiction

[edit]
Collections

———————

Bibliography notes
  1. ↑ Briefly reviewed in the February 13&20, 2023 issue of The New Yorker, p.85.

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ "Bora Chung". Berlin International Literature Festival. Retrieved 30 January 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Bora Chung". The Booker Prizes. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Discover the shortlist: Bora Chung, 'This is the nicest dream I ever had'". The Booker Prizes. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
  4. 1 2 3 "Fictional Notes toward an Essay on Translation". Asymptote. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 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.
  6. 1 2 "Bora Chung". Smoking Tigers. 2019-03-18. Retrieved 2022-05-26.
  7. ↑ "The 2023 National Book Awards Longlist: Translated Literature". The New Yorker. September 13, 2023. Retrieved September 14, 2023.
  8. ↑ "Hanuman Editions".
  9. ↑ Hur, Anton. Twitter https://twitter.com/AntonHur/status/1774797943876579565. Retrieved 1 April 2024. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. ↑ Bayley, Sian. "Bora Chung moves to Dialogue with new novel, The Midnight Timetable". The Bookseller.
  11. ↑ "2026 Locus Awards Winners". Locus Magazine. Retrieved 2026-07-06.
  12. ↑ Bennett, Freya. "Bora Chung on Blending Horror, Humour, and Political Commentary in Korean Fiction". Ramona Magazine. Retrieved 30 January 2026.
  13. ↑ Park, Han-sol (8 January 2021). "Chung Bora puts unrepentant villains, empty vengeance together in sci-fi fiction". The Korea Times. Retrieved 30 January 2026.
  14. ↑ Sorg, Arley (December 2022). "Endings & Experimentations: Conversations with Bora Chung and Anton Hur". Clarkesworld Magazine. No. 195. Retrieved 30 January 2026.
  15. ↑ "Writers' & Artists' Statements & Readings in Solidarity with Palestine". Speaking Out of Place. Retrieved January 30, 2026.
  16. ↑ "Letter: Refusing Complicity in Israel's Literary Institutions". Publishers for Palestine. Retrieved January 30, 2026.
  17. ↑ Rascoe, Ayesha (11 December 2022). "Bora Chung on her collection of short stories 'Cursed Bunny'". NPR. Retrieved 30 January 2026.
  18. ↑ Johnson, Michelle (March 2024). "8 Questions for Bora Chung". World Literature Today. Retrieved 30 January 2026.
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