Honford Star – förlag

International Booker Prize-shortlisted Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant and shortlisted for the 2022 Booker International Prize.

Amid a literal fog of war on a disputed planet, a woman is thrust into battle, forced to fight in her captors' war. With an empire at her back, ready to kill her at the slightest hesitation, this slave turned reluctant hero must battle through an unknown enemy, scientific abominations, and truly alien terrain to uncover the truth about her identity and that of her enslaved companions. Chung's novel—told in sparse, evocative prose and expertly translated by Anton Hur—draws on the real history of Korean soldiers who fought and died in a war against Russia on behalf of the Qing Dynasty. Red Sword combines stunning world-building with a thought-provoking challenge to readers: what does it mean to wield power over others?

When his father is accused of rebellion and forced to commit seppuku, it falls to Maki Bunshirō to protect his family’s house from future retribution. Training as a samurai, Bunshirō must hone his skills with the sword and make powerful allies among the elders of the domain if he hopes to survive. As he is navigating clan politics, the object of his youthful affection, Fuku, becomes the mistress of the lord of the domain. When Fuku and her child become the key to the future of the domain, Bunshirō is forced to choose between what his lord commands and his childhood love.Semishigure, literally meaning “cicada showers,” refers to the ever-present noise of insects chirping in Japanese summers, a nostalgic reminder of the passing seasons. This much-loved, sentimental samurai novel by Shuhei Fujisawa, the undisputed master of the genre, is finally available in English, and Thomas Harper’s deft translation brings all of the power, longing, and joy of the original that has captivated generations of Japanese readers.

By the internationally acclaimed author of Cursed Bunny, in another thrilling translation from the Korean by Anton Hur, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. “Nothing concentrates the mind like Chung’s terrors, which will shrivel you to a bouillon cube of your most primal instincts” (Vulture), yet these stories are suffused with Chung’s inimitable wry humor and surprisingly tender moments, too—often between unexpected subjects.Chung’s writing is “haunting, funny, gross, terrifying—and yet when we reach the end, we just want more” (Alexander Chee). If you haven’t yet experienced the fruits of this singular imagination, Your Utopia is waiting.

Traveling Practice follows a novelist and his spirited niece as they embark on a walk across the Japanese countryside during the last days before the pandemic. Through their journey, the book masterfully explores themes of memory and the power of writing to capture fleeting moments and preserve them. Nominated for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize and winner of both the Mishima Yukio Prize and the Tsubota Joji Literature Prize, Traveling Practice’s quiet, reflective tone and focus on the characters’ inner lives elevate it beyond a simple travel story, establishing it as a significant work of literary fiction.

Seul, a construction project manager, investigates a foul stench beneath the premier department store in Seoul. Hidden records from the building’s construction during the colonial era hint at madness. The only clue is a cryptic phrase: “Bin-o-jae.” Beneath the glittering showroom, she uncovers secrets tied not only to workers’ suffering and capitalism’s horrors, but to her own body.Come Down to a Lower Place is part of the Lovecraft Reanimated project, where leading Korean speculative fiction writers reimagine the works of horror master H.P. Lovecraft. While honoring his eerie, grotesque imagery and the blurred boundaries between reality and fantasy, they update his ideas for a global audience.

Minsuh, an anthropology student researching shamanistic rituals and the mudangs who perform them, has dismissed the supernatural her whole life. To her, mudangs are performers skilled at pleasing researchers. But as she gets deeper into her research, she’s afflicted with a mysterious shinbyeong— a holy sickness unique to Korea—causing her to start losing her mind. In her desperation, she turns to a “real” mudang, but will she find salvation for her affliction or will she be driven further into her madness?Alien Gods is part of the Lovecraft Reanimated project, where leading Korean speculative fiction writers reimagine the works of horror master H.P. Lovecraft. While honoring his eerie, grotesque imagery and the blurred boundaries between reality and fantasy, they update his ideas for a global audience.

Visionary Korean author Kim Bo-Young unleashes a Lovecraftian nightmare of infection, transformation, and abomination.While waiting for a train to Haewon, an isolated Korean seaside village, bodyguard Muyoung gets a disaster alert on her phone. TVs throughout the station report breaking news of a massive earthquake on the eastern coast. Despite the danger, Muyoung boards the train with her niece: she’d rather face the earthquake than leave the girl in her mother’s care. That choice haunts her for the rest of her life.Three years later, Haewon Village is home to horrors. The earthquake unleashed an ancient plague that transforms its victims into fishy monsters, and the government’s lockdown has cut off any hope for help. Muyoung’s niece is dead, and all that’s left for her is to hunt villagers who break isolation. When an officious bureaucrat from Seoul arrives in the village, he stirs up even deeper trouble. Will Muyoung survive? Does she even deserve to?

During the hot, dry summer of 1988, in a forgotten neighborhood known as the riverside, seventeen-year-old Shinogaki Toma is entangled in a desperate struggle against what he believes to be his fate to become his sadistic father. Consumed by a fear that he will harm his girlfriend, Toma’s downward spiral into depression and instability becomes increasingly intense. Toma’s mother left his father long ago and now lives nearby as a fishmonger. Using the hook that replaced the hand she lost during wartime bombings, she guts the eels Toma catches in the sewage-filled river for his father to eat. Things come to a head when Kotoko, his father’s live in girlfriend, becomes pregnant and makes the decision to leave the riverside for a better life.Translated from Japanese by Kalau Almony, Tanaka Shinya’s Akutagawa Prize-winning masterpiece, Cannibals, sold over 200,000 copies in Japan and was adapted into a movie by Cannes Film Festival-winner Shinji Aoyama.

An obsessive Tokyoite Pygmalion—thrilling and provocative literary fiction from a leading Japanese author.Akira, a meticulous editor at a major publishing house in Tokyo, harbors a secret: he lives with Koharu, a Hungarian-made love doll. Each night, he speaks to her and finds a long-sought solace in her presence—a comfort he cannot attain even in the arms of real women in his life. Things only improve when Koharu breaks free from her role as a love doll and starts speaking and moving on her own, transformed into the perfect wife.But when a new woman enters Akira’s life, everything changes. A single confession to Koharu about his attraction sets off a chain of disturbing events that spiral into the unexpected.

Astral Season, Beastly Season is the debut novel by Japanese writer Tahi Saihate. The story follows Morishita and Yamashiro, two high-school boys approaching the age in life when they must choose what kind of people they want to be. When their favourite J-pop idol kills and dismembers her boyfriend, Morishita and Yamashiro unite to convince the police that their idol’s act was in fact by them. This thrilling novel is a meditation on belonging, the objectification of young popstars, and teenage alienation.

Earth is experiencing a sweltering heatwave caused by a second “sun” – a shining object in the sky that either looks like Pac-Man or a pizza missing a slice, depending on who you ask. As this object increases in size and risks making Earth uninhabitable, the Korean government decides it has to do its part and help the US-led Allied Space Force. Launch Something! is a sci-fi novel about a Korean Space Force that contains his quirky brand of political satire.

Tower is a series of interconnected stories set in Beanstalk, a 674-story skyscraper and sovereign nation. Each story deals with how citizens living in the hypermodern high-rise deal with various influences of power in their lives: a group of researchers have to tell their boss that a major powerbroker is a dog, a woman uses the power of the internet to rescue a downed fighter pilot abandoned by the government, and an out-of-towner finds himself in charge of training a gentle elephant to break up protests. Bae explores the forces that shape modern life with wit and a sly wink at the reader.

The Age of Doubt collects some of Pak Kyongni’s most famous works, including her 1955 debut and other stories featuring characters that would appear in her 21-volume epic, Toji. Many of Pak’s stories reflect her own turbulent experiences during the period following the Korean war and the various South Korean dictatorships throughout the twentieth century.

On May 20, 2024, one day after the inauguration of Taiwan’s first Indigenous president, the entire population of the island wakes up to discover they have suddenly switched places with the residents of Cuba. Two multi-ethnic island communities with colonial histories suddenly find themselves facing baffling new questions, as well as the greedy weight of a new “mainland” hegemon. Huang Chong-Kai’s astonishing work of speculative realism opens new conversations on race, marginality, and the (re)telling of history by weaving multiple voices and genres into a single work. We experience the miraculous switch through the eyes of Taiwan’s first Indigenous president, a Cuban painter, a Han Taiwanese who wants to be Indigenous, and a former inmate of Guantanamo Bay. The author transforms these stories into a narrative ecosystem by presenting them through a variety of different media styles, including book reviews, podcast transcripts, and interviews.

Detective Yi Chang needs another miracle. Ten years ago his sister was healed of her deadly cancer by a mysterious cult leader, but now his young niece has inherited the same disease. The only lead Yi Chang has is the body of a murder victim found in an abandoned building in the Korean seaside. The man was stabbed repeatedly, but the knife found next to the body is covered with someone else’s blood. Even stranger, the victim’s face is covered with malignant melanoma, a disease he did not have. With time running short, Yi Chang must discover how this murder is related to the cult leader he so desperately seeks.Award-winning Korean science fiction and fantasy sensation Cho Yeeun, author of the hit The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre, is back with a haunting tale that explores the price we pay for miracles.

Jini dedicates her life to the study of primates. One night, she helps rescue a bonobo that has escaped from a burning building. As she holds the bonobo in her arms on the way back to the Center for Primate Studies, an accident throws her through the windshield and a strange fusion takes place: while her body is taken to the hospital, between life and death, Jini’s spirit takes refuge in the body of the little bonobo. Thus begins a fascinating coexistence between the two beings.From the author of the #1 international bestsellers The Good Son and Seven Years of Darkness, Jeong delivers a captivating story that keeps us on our toes from start to finish. But the real originality of his novel is to examine the boundaries between human and animal by making us enter the universe and the sensitivity of bonobos.

By the internationally acclaimed author of Cursed Bunny, in another thrilling translation from the Korean by Anton Hur, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. "Nothing concentrates the mind like Chung''s terrors, which will shrivel you to a bouillon cube of your most primal instincts" (Vulture), yet these stories are suffused with Chung''s inimitable wry humor and surprisingly tender moments, too—often between unexpected subjects.Chung''s writing is "haunting, funny, gross, terrifying—and yet when we reach the end, we just want more" (Alexander Chee). If you haven''t yet experienced the fruits of this singular imagination, Your Utopia is waiting.

At New Seoul Park, Korea’s greatest theme park, an enigmatic man tempts visitors with a mysterious jelly candy that promises an unbreakable bond. As the sun beats down on a muggy summer afternoon, a child separated from her disinterested parents, a single mother striving to create a memorable day on a shoestring budget, and a couple on the brink of splitting up, all end up tasting this ominous candy. Little do they know that a sinister force lurks beneath the innocent facade. The sweet and innocent soon turns grotesque as the jelly becomes the catalyst for a sticky, sweet massacre.Masterfully translated by Yewon Jung, The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre weaves a chilling tale of deceptive sweetness and the body horror of slowly melting into your loved ones.

LISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZENinth Building is a fascinating collection of vignettes drawn from Zou Jingzhi’s experience growing up during the Cultural Revolution, first as a boy in Beijing and then as a teenager exiled to the countryside. Zou poetically captures a side of the Cultural Revolution that is less talked about—the sheer tedium and waste of young life, as well as the gallows humor that accompanies such desperate situations. Jeremy Tiang’s enthralling translation of this important work of fiction was awarded a PEN/Heim Grant.

Earth is experiencing a sweltering heatwave caused by a second “sun” – a shining object in the sky that either looks like Pac-Man or a pizza missing a slice, depending on who you ask. As this object increases in size and risks making Earth uninhabitable, the Korean government decides it has to do its part and help the US-led Allied Space Force. Launch Something! is a sci-fi novel about a Korean Space Force that contains his quirky brand of political satire.

A group of dramatists that commit what was a subversive act during the South Korean military dictatorships of the twentieth century – distributing copies of Karl Marx’s only surviving play, The Specters of Algeria. The consequences of the brutal crackdown by the authorities would set the directions of the lives of two children of the group’s members, Yul and Jing. Despite the deep connection between them, Yul would open up an alteration shop in Seoul and Jing would move to Europe. But now, Cheolsu, a dissatisfied employee at a community theatre, is unearthing the truth about The Specters of Algeria and questioning whether the human situation is as absurd as the play asserts.

1942. At the turning point of the war, the Imperial Japanese Army is in retreat. On Papua New Guinea, the unnamed narrator of Finger Bone is wounded in the fighting and sent to a field hospital to recover. There, he befriends other injured men only to watch them die one by one from their wounds, hunger, and disease. When a soldier dies, instead of a returning the body to Japan, a medic cuts off the corpse’s index finger, burns away the flesh, and prepares the remaining bone to be sent back to the soldier’s family. The narrator carries the finger bone of his friend in an aluminum tin with the promise he will return the bone to his comrade’s young son.Finger Bone is the prize-winning debut by famed Japanese author Hiroki Takahashi. The novel explores the self-consuming nature of imperialism, the ingloriousness of war, and how we are all identical in death.

1942. At the turning point of the war, the Imperial Japanese Army is in retreat. On Papua New Guinea, the unnamed narrator of Finger Bone is wounded in the fighting and sent to a field hospital to recover. There, he befriends other injured men only to watch them die one by one from their wounds, hunger, and disease. When a soldier dies, instead of a returning the body to Japan, a medic cuts off the corpse’s index finger, burns away the flesh, and prepares the remaining bone to be sent back to the soldier’s family. The narrator carries the finger bone of his friend in an aluminum tin with the promise he will return the bone to his comrade’s young son.Finger Bone is the prize-winning debut by famed Japanese author Hiroki Takahashi. The novel explores the self-consuming nature of imperialism, the ingloriousness of war, and how we are all identical in death.

At New Seoul Park, Korea''s greatest theme park, an enigmatic man tempts visitors with a mysterious jelly candy that promises an unbreakable bond. As the sun beats down on a muggy summer afternoon, a child separated from her disinterested parents, a single mother striving to create a memorable day on a shoestring budget, and a couple on the brink of splitting up, all end up tasting this ominous candy. Little do they know that a sinister force lurks beneath the innocent facade. The sweet and innocent soon turns grotesque as the jelly becomes the catalyst for a sticky, sweet massacre.Masterfully translated by Yewon Jung, The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre weaves a chilling tale of deceptive sweetness and the body horror of slowly melting into your loved ones.

Kang Kyeong-ae (1906-1944), one of Korea’s great modern authors, wrote her stories during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Kang’s work is remarkable for its rejection of colonialism, patriarchy, and ethnic nationalism during a period when such views were truly radical and dangerous. With an expert commentary by Sang-kyung Lee and beautifully translated by Anton Hur, this collection of Kang’s work displays her sensitivity, defiance, class-consciousness, and deep understanding of the oppressed people she wrote about.Born in what is now North Korea to an impoverished family, as a young woman, Kang was a teacher in Manchuria, where she witnessed fierce infighting between Korean nationalists and communists and the persecution of ethnic Koreans by Manchurian warlords. It was in Manchuria that Kang started writing her stories, which were shaped by her life experiences and left-wing political views.

In The Proposal, a space opera romance set against the backdrop of a looming colossal war between Earth and a mysterious adversary, a story of love unfolds through a series of intimate letters. This poignant novella explores how a space-born soldier’s gradual involvement with an escalating conflict intertwines with a heartfelt proposal to his Earth-born partner, revealing the intricate dance of love and duty at the edge of an interstellar conflict.Translated by Stella Kim, The Proposal reflects on the distances that separate us—both physically and emotionally—and celebrates the resilience of the human spirit, ever striving to overcome these divides.

During the hot, dry summer of 1988, in a forgotten neighborhood known as the riverside, seventeen-year-old Shinogaki Toma is entangled in a desperate struggle against what he believes to be his fate to become his sadistic father. Consumed by a fear that he will harm his girlfriend, Toma''s downward spiral into depression and instability becomes increasingly intense. Toma''s mother left his father long ago and now lives nearby as a fishmonger. Using the hook that replaced the hand she lost during wartime bombings, she guts the eels Toma catches in the sewage-filled river for his father to eat. Things come to a head when Kotoko, his father''s live in girlfriend, becomes pregnant and makes the decision to leave the riverside for a better life.Translated from Japanese by Kalau Almony, Tanaka Shinya''s Akutagawa Prize-winning masterpiece, Cannibals, sold over 200,000 copies in Japan and was adapted into a movie by Cannes Film Festival-winner Shinji Aoyama.