The Booker Prize Foundation says Chung's collection uses the fantastical to address the horrors of the "patriarchy and capitalism of modern society". She was deeply inspired by Soviet Russian writer Andrei Platonov's 1928 novel "Chevengur", about a poor orphan whose quest to find a communist utopia ultimately fails and ends in a bloodbath. The English edition of Chung's 2017 collection 'Cursed Bunny' has been named a finalist for this year's International Booker Prize / ©Ī graduate of Seoul's Yonsei University, Chung holds a master's degree in Russian and East European studies from Yale and a PhD in Slavic literature from Indiana University, both in the United States. "I was constantly nervous about the future, and because this lasted for nine years, I became very used to the state of being lonely," she added. "I wasn't sure if anything was actually waiting for me in South Korea even if I wanted to return," she said. She spent nearly a decade overseas as a graduate student, living year to year and unsure of her next move, which profoundly shaped her imagination as a writer, she told AFP.
"Cursed Bunny" has not won any prizes in South Korea, and Chung mostly earned a living teaching at a university and translating Russian literature.ĭespite the elements of horror in her work, Chung said the collection was ultimately about the innate loneliness of being human. Only two South Korean writers - Han Kang ("The Vegetarian") and Hwang Sok-yong ("At Dusk") - have previously been nominated for the honour, and both were far more established and well-regarded domestically. Hur's English edition of the book, released by British publisher Honford Star, has been named a finalist for this year's International Booker Prize.
0 kommentar(er)
