Goodbye My Love (안녕, 내 사랑) has a designer of artificial companions deciding it’s time to replace her first robot, and her one true love, although the androids have other ideas. The story is also noticeable for a reference to the uncanny valley concept - one that neatly summarises the collection. The first Korean speculative fiction to be longlisted for the Booker Prize, Cursed Bunny was first published by a tiny independent Korean publisher specializing in SF and then the English translation was published by a tiny independent British publisher and I am so very proud of Arzak and Honford Star. And I am eternally grateful to Anton Hur for all his efforts and achievements.

The human body begins to decline dramatically at the age of sixty, but they live on for ten, twenty, even thirty more years. We were developed to aid such humans and enhance their quality of life… Just a few replacement parts or a software upgrade could help us serve you for a decade longer, but we’re treated like trash as soon as there is a new model.” You would, obviously,” she said, “but why are you in my toilet? And why are you calling me ‘mother’?” Surreal and grotesque, with gestures towards supernatural, fabular and weird fiction, this is a mixed bag of stories. The first half of the collection was better for me (The Head, The Embodiment, Cursed Bunny, The Frozen Finger, Snare) then there's a transitional AI/speculative fiction entry with Goodbye My Love that feels over-familiar even to me and I rarely read in that genre but it's similar to Machines Like Me, Klara and the Sun, Little Eyes. The final four longer tales just didn't really work for me and feel like Chung is trying things out without the assurance of voice and vision that characterises the early stories. I have been wanting to read Cursed Bunny ever since I heard that it was coming out. How I specifically had heard about this one was that Anton Hur was translating it, and I really like Anton Hur’s translations.

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The scatological and profane swim together in Cursed Bunny. Originally published in 2017, this is South Korean author Bora Chung’s first work to be translated into English. Chung takes aim at capitalism, misogyny and the social obsessions with youth and beauty through these stories, which fluidly cross genres from science fiction to traditional fable structures.

Most of the male characters in these stories hunger for power but are unable to stop it from corrupting them. Most of the female characters suffer, lose agency and are powerless in the face of patriarchal greed and control. The collection can admittedly feel relentlessly bleak at times, disturbing and frightening but with a staunch moral compass. There is little offered in the way of hope, or grace, or relief, especially in the Cronenberg-esque body horror of some of the more visceral stories, but with Hur’s crisp clean translation of Chung’s effective, simple language, it is hard to stop reading. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy nearly any of the stories in this collection. While I didn't hate them, I was always left at the end of each one wanting more. Not longer stories, but more depth. More context, more specificity, more explanation. The last story in the collection, ironically, was great! It felt like it had something to say and it used the subversion of genre and expectations to do so, giving the main character more depth than any of the others that had come before. These ten stories by South Korean author Bora Chung started off with somewhat lighter, surreal, yet meaningful horror - the opening stories were just breathtaking: “The Head”, the story of a woman whose remains of all sorts, hair, skin, nails, feces assemble to form a new being; “The Embodiment”, in which a woman falls pregnant mysteriously to an even more mysterious “child”; and the titular “Cursed Bunny” in which karma finds its place through cursed objects. I liked the kind of sharp critique creeping through this intro, along with a very visual kind of storytelling. Alas, this intro was also the highlight for me. From an author never before published in the United States, Cursed Bunny is unique and imaginative, blending horror, sci-fi, fairy tales, and speculative fiction into stories that defy categorization. By turns thought-provoking and stomach-turning, here monsters take the shapes of furry woodland creatures and danger lurks in unexpected corners of everyday apartment buildings. But in this unforgettable collection, translated by the acclaimed Anton Hur, Chung’s absurd, haunting universe could be our own.

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The author’s own take on the collection explains how the characters, be that people, robots or rabbits, are typically alone and coping with a wild, unfamiliar, at times beautiful but at other times barbaric world: After reading this book (and Happy Stories, Mostly) I can no longer say that I do not like short stories. There is clear proof that I can be fully swept of my feet by the right author.

To return to Chung; I couldn't help but ask is she also relying on the wow factor - to gain attention and notoriety? Her work is described as innovative, genre defying, an exuberant mix of styles - but IS IT ART? Honford Star describes Chung’s work as ‘genre-defying’, and this is certainly apt. Cursed Bunny moves from horror to science-fiction, from magical realism to dark fantasy with ease, and with a level of quality so consistent it beggars belief. Chung sows seeds of distrust throughout the book; there is a palpable sense that she is not on our side. She wants to show us something awful whether or not we want to see it. If there are weaknesses in the collection, they are minor. Goodbye, My Love, a story about androids, seems misplaced, and of all the stories has the most familiar plot; but as a meditation on abuse, and the nature of love and memory, it works well. Now there are ten stories in this collection, but I’m not going to discuss all of them in this review—that’s something for another time. I’m going to focus in and pinpoint the stories I found most interesting and had values I could take away with, so let us delve a bit deeper, shall we?Godammnit! I liked this one. It's about greed and how everything has a price. I was gasping at the twists in this short story. I was ready to DNF after this one. This is pointless and confusing. What a long way of saying that you shouldn't spread hate because it will consume you.