Your Utopia: Stories
Description
"Chung builds out her stories with imagination, absurdity and a dry sense of humor, all applied with X-Acto knife precision." ―Alexandra Kleeman, The New York Times Book Review
“Bora Chung’s stories glisten at the border of our weird world, and all our other weird worlds. A truly sublime book.” ―Samantha Hunt, bestselling author of The Seas and The Unwritten Book
From the acclaimed author and translator of the National Book Award Finalist, Cursed Bunny, a fresh, uncanny, and utterly profound collection of stories set in near and distant futures that reflect our deepest fears—and deepest desires.
Bora Chung’s inimitable blend of horror, absurdity, and dark humor reaches its peak in these tales of loss and discovery, dystopia and idealism, death and immortality. In a thrilling translation by the acclaimed Anton Hur, readers will experience a variety of possible fates for humanity, from total demise via a disease whose only symptom is casual cannibalism to a world in which even dreams can be monitored and used to convict people of crimes.
In “The Center for Immortality Research,” a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors only to be blamed for the chaos that ensues during the event in front of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. In “A Song for Sleep,” an AI elevator in an apartment complex develops a tender, one-sided love for an elderly resident. “Seed” traverses the final frontier of capitalism’s destruction of the planet—but nature always creeps back to life.
If you haven’t yet experienced the fruits of Chung’s singular imagination, Your Utopia is waiting.
Praise for Your Utopia: Stories
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by The Millions, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Book Riot, and Marie Claire.
"Best Books this Week" on Shelf Awareness
Included in This Week's (3/21/24) Editors' Choice of the "7 New Books We Recommend This Week" by New York Times Book Review—--
“Bora Chung’s stories glisten at the border of our weird world, and all our other weird worlds. A truly sublime book.”—Samantha Hunt, bestselling author of The Seas and The Unwritten Book
“Chung builds out her stories with imagination, absurdity and a dry sense of humor, all applied with X-Acto knife precision”—New York Times Book Review
“Chung has crafted another weird and surprising story collection…Central to the collection is an exploration of loneliness and isolation, but Chung is far too complex a writer to simply blame technology for these shortcomings… She plays with our expectations of the future, experiments with the possibilities of what could be, and sprinkles in elements from other genres to keep the stories fresh.”—Chicago Review of Books
"[An] impressive second collection... Through the prism of her singular imagination, Chung looks sharply at the ways the world we’ve made doesn’t suit us...These are stories to sit with, to read one at a time and savor.”—Esquire's Best Sci-Fi Books of 2024 (So Far)
"Unexpected, funny, thrillingly original. These stories will stick with me."—Ainslie Hogarth, author of the New York Times Best Book of the Year, Motherthing, and Normal Women
“Bora Chung has proven once again that she is an undeniable maestro of the uncanny, grotesque, and posthuman. Only a consummate speculative allegorist could write a collection that functions as so haunting a mirror of our modern world, reminding us all the while that the politely deranged cannibals and lovesick AIs and beleaguered alien wives we see reflected in that mirror are really just versions of ourselves.”—Rafael Frumkin, author of Confidence and The Comedown
“Imagining a utopia and mourning when it falls short are the first steps toward creating a better world. A big job for fiction; Chung’s up to the task. The imagined worlds here may not be utopian—but the reading experience is.”—Kirkus Reviews
“This is another fantastic collection...that combines big topics such as technology, human absurdity, and mortality. And [Chung] does it in the most amazing ways.”—Book Riot
“Hur returns as Chung’s brilliant Korean-to-English cipher for eight more enigmatically irresistible stories… Chung’s electrifying author’s note offers provenance for many of her stories and an empathic invitation to progress 'toward a better world for both you and me.'” *STARRED REVIEW*—Booklist
“A gut-punch reminder of our own humanity or lack thereof. It urges readers not only to be kinder, but also to be wide-eyed about the technological world around them. This is a book to slip into your friend’s hand with a knowing nod and a wordless 'trust me' implied.”—Scientific American
“Uncanny atmospheres and heartfelt human insights strike an unlikely balance… Chung lingers tenderly with the emotional depths of her stories, which arise almost unexpectedly as her characters navigate surreal, speculative, and often mundanely horrifying horizons.”—Shelf Awareness
"Chung’s distinctive imagination remains delightfully compelling... Chung’s stories eschew techno-pessimism and suggest that empathy and heart are what is missing from discussions about technology’s role in our future."—The Georgetown Voice
“If you are looking for stories that are reminiscent of 'Black Mirror' or that peek into the unknown, surrounding, burgeoning AI and make one generally question what it means to be human, then Your Utopia is for you."—Bookreporter.com
"Bora Chung is a writer rich in ideas with an impressive power of controlled narration and tone. Everything is thoughtful and quiet, even amid horrifying details." —The Arts Fuse
"Your Utopia deftly interrogates what it means to be human."—The Georgetown Voice
