Owl Cries

Hye-young Pyun was born in 1972 in Seoul and earned her undergraduate degree in creative writing and graduate degree in Korean literature from Hanyang University. Her published works include the short story collections Aoi Garden, To the Kennels, Evening Courtship, and Night Passes; and the novels City of Ash and Red, They Went to the Western Forest, The Law of Lines, The Hole, and Let the Dead. She has received many awards in Korea, including the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award, the Yi Hyo-Seok Literature Prize, the Today's Young Writer Award, the Dong-in Literary Award, the Yi Sang Literary Award, and the Contemporary Literature (Hyundai Munhak) Award. Her novel TheHole was the 2017 winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, and City of Ash and Red was an NPR Great Read. In 2019, she was awarded the Kim Yujeong Literary Award for her short story "Hotel Window." Her short stories have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and Words Without Borders. She currently teaches creative writing at Myongji University and lives in Seoul, Korea.Sora Kim-Russell's translations include, besides The Hole, City of Ash and Red, and The Law of Lines by Hye-young Pyun, Un-su Kim's The Plotters; Hwang Sok-yong's At Dusk, which was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize; and Suah Bae's Nowhere to be Found. Her full list of publications can be found at sorakimrussell.com. She lives in Seoul, Korea.

"Intense . . .  fast-paced and all-consuming . . . A novel of secrets, isolation, and pain, The Owl Cries is another tightly executed feat of writing."—Book Riot"Hye-Young Pyun’s stunning psychological thrillers delve deep into the horrors of being human and the oppressive mechanics of modern society, and The Owl Cries demonstrates a writer at the top of her game."—CrimeReads"Adventurous mystery fans should check this out."—Publishers WeeklyPraise from Korea for The Owl Cries“Pyunʼs forest is like a dark labyrinth. Even just a few inches off the beaten track, and you step into an unstable, wobbly world of horror. Pyun explains that ʻthe forest is a place full of dread, but also someplace one must venture into in order to find oneself.ʼ”—Daily Economy (Maeil Kyungjae)  “But the forest remains a mystery . . . The forest is a microcosm of the world; and the characters in The Owl Cries, ignorant, resigned, and at times quick to resort to violence, are indeed portraits of our own generations.”—Kyunghyang Shinmun  “The book comes across as a detective or mystery novel [but with] an open ending, the case not closed. . . . Perhaps what we can take from the novel is that our problems and answers to them always stem from ourselves, and our lack of self-assertion tends to drive us into a state of despair.”—Readersʼ News  “As the story unravels . . . the mystery only grows. The role of the forest as the backdrop to many secrets, the owl supposedly lurking in its foliage, and the chilling psychology of the people involved in those secrets are illustrated with a hint of the grotesque. . . . The forest seems to be synonymous with our contemporary society, just as seething with suspicion and anxiety. Yes, are we not living in such a forest?”—Munhwa Ilbo  “I should perhaps put it this way: our society—not unlike the village in The Owl Cries—exploits and deceives its members, with everyone complicit in petty schemes, everyone drunk and unable to tell reality from hallucination. . . . In The Owl Cries, the literary prowess that has won Pyun so many awards is unmistakable.”—Seoul Shinmun  “The Owl Cries . . . explores a number of themes Iʼve always felt especially intrigued by.It was born out of my favorite motifs, such as the inherently futile journey to fully comprehend the self, a character who does his best but always ends up with a failure, and an inscrutable world wide open to interpretation. . . . Itʼs a book of mine thatʼs always on my mind.”—Hye-young Pyun on The Owl Cries, Yes TV (Korea) interview  Praise for Hye-young Pyun's Previous NovelsThe HoleWinner of the Shirley Jackson Award"A Korean take on Misery." —Time, "Top 10 Thrillers to Read This Summer""[A] taut psychological thriller. . . . The Hole is an unshakable novel about the unfathomable depths of human need." —Shelf AwarenessCity of Ash and RedAn NPR  Great Read, a Barnes & Noble Best Horror Book of 2018, a CrimeReads Ten Best International Crime Fiction Selection“City of Ash and Red will pull you into its nightmare."―NPR"Kafkaesque . . . Those with a taste for creepy suspense will be rewarded."―Publishers Weekly"Another gruesome masterpiece."―Crime ReadsThe Law of LinesA CrimeReads Best International Crime Novel of 2020"[A] simmering thriller."—The New York Times Book Review"[A] compelling ­existential thriller."—Wall Street Journal"Pure, hard-scrabble noir . . . Harrowing and elegiac."—LitHub