The Midnight Timetable
Description
Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny and deeply political, The Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time's greatest imaginations.
'I inhaled Bora Chung's book of ghost stories and then slept with the light on!' Avni Doshi, author of Burnt Sugar
'A wild midnight tour of a uniquely brilliant and exquisitely demented world - a world I did not want to leave!' Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrilio
In a labyrinthine research facility, where those who open the wrong door might find it's disappeared behind them or that the echoing footsteps they're running from are their own, an unnamed protagonist begins their night shift under the watchful eye of the building's enigmatic senior guard.
Each evening, as the fluorescent lights flicker and the silence grows heavier, the guard shares another tale of cursed objects and lives unspooled by vengeance, sorrow or revelation. But these are not mere ghost stories. They're warnings. Lessons. Or, perhaps, confessions . . .
As the nights stretch on and reality frays, our protagonist starts to suspect that the building itself is alive with malevolent intent and that the objects they guard aren't just cursed. They're waiting. Watching.
'Electrifying. A feast of a book. Strange, hypnotic and audacious.' Irenosen Okojie, author of Curandera
'A fascinating novel of shifting realities centred by a steady, humane heart. Bora Chung is a master of concocting dreamscapes that linger.' Marie-Helene Bertino, author of Beautyland
'These ghost stories . . . mist off the page and leave the real world hazy and askew.' Pemi Aguda, author of Ghostroots
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Persons
Bora Chung is a writer and translator whose works include the National Book Award finalist and International Booker Prize-shortlisted Cursed Bunny. She has an MA in Russian Studies from Yale University and a PhD in Slavic literature from Indiana University. She has taught Russian language and literature and science fiction at Yonsei University and translates modern literary works from Russian and Polish into Korean.
Anton Hur was born in Stockholm and currently resides in Seoul. He won a PEN Translates grant for his translation of The Underground Village by Kang Kyeong-ae and a PEN/Heim grant for Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny, the latter of which was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. His translation of Sang Young Park's Love in the Big City was longlisted for the same prize in the same year. His translation of Violets was longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Awards. He has taught at the British Centre for Literary Translation, the Ewha University Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, and the Bread Loaf Translators Conference. His writing is published in Words Without Borders, Asymptote Journal, Litro, and others.