Overview

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. 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 hum 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. 'With a bone-dry wit and biting allegorical edge, expertly captured in Hur's translation, Chung turns the haunted-object trope into a vehicle for radical empathy and sharp critique. Part fable, part ghost story, and part social commentary, this is a beautiful and devastating excavation of how people make sense of the world's violence and tragedies.' -Publishers Weekly, starred review 'This is the perfect bite-sized horror book- a collection of haunting ghost stories easily consumed in one sitting. Through vivid imagery and biting rhythm, Bora Chung creates a vicious atmosphere, critiquing society and the selfish and stupid actions people take for fame, money, and their own comfort ... Chung deftly and sharply unsettles the reader, making them turn the page before they know it ... She has done a superb job of writing something both chilling, and beautiful in its entirety. Both horror fanatics and newcomers to the genre will devour this powerful and witty collection.' -Jacinta Richards, Readings 'Midnight Timetable does what the best of horror, sci-fi, and other genre writing can achieve- It renders our present realities strange again.' -Foreign Policy

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9781761381690

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Author Information

Bora Chung (Author) Bora Chung is a writer of speculative fiction and a translator of contemporary Russian and Polish literature. She has published three full-length novels and four short story collections in Korean. As of 2025, five of her works have been translated by Anton Hur and published in English; the first, Cursed Bunny, was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize and the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Anton Hur (Translator) 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. His other translations include Kyung-Sook Shin's The Court Dancer and I Went to See My Father, Djuna's Counterweight, and Baek Sehee's I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki.

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