Pictured above: Bora Chung. Photo credit: Hye Young
Bio:
Bora Chung is a translator and a writer. She has an MA in Russian and East European Area Studies from Yale University and a PhD in Slavic literature from Indiana University. She translates modern literary works Russian and Polish into Korean and writes generally unrealistic stories. Among her works. Cursed Bunny, a collection of short stories, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022, and was a finalist for the National Book Awards in 2023. She is currently an active member of the science fiction writers union of Korea.
Randy:
Welcome to the show, Bora. Congratulations on your latest book, Your Utopia. Let's talk about your writing journey. What motivated you to become a writer? What early experiences can you share that led you into writing?
Bora:
Money!! (Laughs) I believe it's in the first story in the American version of Cursed Bunny. “The Head” was the first thing I wrote ever in my life. And I wrote it because there was a school contest every year and I wanted the prize money. They accepted poetry, fiction, and literary criticism. I wasn't intelligent enough to write any literary criticism to compete with the Korean majors. I had no talent in poetry, but I thought I could write a weird story and maybe get the prize money. So I wrote the weirdest story I could think of and I got the money. Oh, yeah, it was money-motivated!
Randy:
I would never have guessed that. I think that's so interesting because I know that in Korean culture, like in the Korean education system, (I used to live in Korea), I remembered how it was always competitive amongst students. Did you end up developing a love for writing right after winning the prize money?
Bora:
Yes, it was fun. (During) the 90s, genre literature, or the weird stuff that I write wasn't exactly welcomed from the eyes of Korean mainstream literature, which focuses on realism. My stories were like the opposite end of realism. So I wrote for myself for some time, for about 10 years. Then in 2008, I won third place. I think, in another contest, that was a national one, not just my school. So I became a writer and I'm still writing.
Randy
Thank you for sharing that. With Cursed Bunny and your most recent release Your Utopia, both these books are associated with sci-fi, dark humor, capitalism, and futurism, to name a few. What can you tell us about your own experiences being Korean? And how is it connected to the stories?
Bora:
Being Korean is a wild ride. There are so many weird things happening around here in this country (Korea). I genuinely don't understand this country. I was very bewildered for the first 25 years of my life. Then I went to the (United) States, and I studied and then I came back, and I got angry. When I came back, I had (this new) experience from a different culture. Not necessarily better. I must say, but it was completely different. And I was alone, free from all the influences of my parents, my family, and my friends, so I could develop my point of view. And then when I came back to Korea, I became more and more angry. So I became a very angry Asian ajumma. And I started to protest. And protesting helped me with a lot of things. So I'm still protesting and writing.
Randy
What protests were you involved in at that time in Korea?
Bora:
Well, the Sewol ferry sank in 2014, and I was still teaching high school and college kids. They're all kids from a teacher's point of view. So I couldn't really like, go into the lecture hall and look at my students without tearing up or crying because of all the kids that were trapped in that boat (Sewol ferry), and I couldn't sleep. So that's why I went to protest, mainly because I wanted to keep my sanity by doing something, and other things, mostly to be a better teacher. Like there was this, (and this was back in 2015). The previous regime and the other previous regimes wanted to nationalize the history textbook so that they could impose their regime's point of view on history onto kids. All the history teachers were coming out to the streets to protest. So I went there, and they had like costumes from the Japanese annexation period, and it was really fun. The teachers’ protests were really, really impressive. Like they start on the dot, if they say they're going to start at 6pm, they start preparing by 5:45. And they start on the dot at 6pm!
I was a teacher back then and very much empathized with them (students). The Sewol movement and also the Equality Bill movement, that's still ongoing. Nobody wants to enact the Equality Bill. I don't really understand why. I think the most problematic part is equal rights for people with different sexual orientations. That's the official phrasing in the bill. I don't really understand why that's such a big problem. But there's a big problem with that. A lot of my students, at least statistically, 10% of my students are LGBTQIA because that's a statistical norm. (In another story) Because I was in a foreign language department, we had a lot of (Korean) students from Russia and from former Soviet Union countries who were not native speakers of Korean who did not have Korean nationality, so they could not claim the full rights as a Korean citizen, but they had Korean heritage. So they were in between cultures. I wanted that equality bill to (pass). I want my students to have a better future and I didn't want to worry about them, like being pushed to the ditch after they graduated, just because they were gay or just because they did not have citizenship. So I went to protests. I actually ran into some of my students, and it was really fun to protest with them. Then I wrote about it in Your Utopia. I went to the ritual prostrating (the graceful wording that Anton used in his translation). It's ritualized pushups. It's a Buddhist ritual. You put five points of your body on the ground, the forehead, the two elbows, your knees, so those are the five points and if you put them on the ground, you're like, completely flat on the ground prostrating. The Buddhist monks did that too for the enactment of the Equality Bill. And all the religious groups participated, all the four major religions in Korea, they all participated in solidarity against disability discrimination. A whole lot of LGBTQIA groups like Patchwork, that's the name of the group, a transgender rights group. People of The Planet, that's the name of another LGBTQIA group. They all participated. So we marched, we prostrated together. And it was really, really scary. Like when I was prostrating on a slope. I was like, I could, I could feel myself sliding downwards as if I was like going down. But it was interesting. So I like Buddhist monks. They're really cool. Yeah, all those things and it's still going on.
Randy:
Thank you for sharing all of these experiences which actually leads me to my next question. As we know, we live in a world that is often very turbulent with state-sanctioned violence, militarism, climate change, and the recent pandemic, how does this all inform your own story writing?
Bora:
They influence my stories in ways that I can't predict. So they do influence my stories, but I can't really pinpoint like, which topic influences this story or that story in this specific way. But these topics are all related. So right now I'm living in Pohang, it's a city by the East Sea. And so climate change is a big problem. Because as the ocean water gets warmer and warmer, we're losing all the traditional kinds of fish and sea creatures that used to feed all the people here. And all we get these days is a whole bunch of jellyfish, which are they are and it's not the jellyfishes’ fault, mind you, because they're just following warm, warm water, but they are poisonous, they can attack people. So it's a threat to the tourists. It's a very big threat to the fishermen who are trying to catch other fish and they're losing money. When they cannot catch fish, then the marketplace slows and my mother-in-law owns a store at the biggest fish market here. So like it's all connected. Part of that problem is Pasco, which is a Pohang steel yard here, it's a very big industrial complex that produces steel and all kinds of steelwork and it's a very big company. It used to be a national project in the 70s so they have really big money and big power. They have polluted the environment a lot with the government behind them because they sanctioned all the pollution. They just overlooked all that and allowed all the pollution to happen. Now, they're trying to break down the labor unions. Smaller companies depend on Pasco for their livelihood. So when Pasco is polluting the environment, these people live and work here. So their lives depend on Pasco but their lives also depend on the environment. So if Pasco keeps polluting the environment, then their lives are threatened but they cannot criticize Pasco because they will lose the business. There's a very complicated relationship going on here and in this regional economy, and I started to learn about that after coming here. Those are pretty new aspects that I had no idea about when I was living in Seoul and living life as a school teacher. So all these things are interconnected. And I'm trying to find a main topic that I can understand that I can make a story about, that will convey the emotions that I feel, not exactly the economical, social, political structure itself. Because I'm not writing a research paper, I want to convey the emotions that I feel about all these situations to my readers and that requires a good story.
Randy:
In Your Utopia, one of your stories “The End of The Voyage” goes into the topic of cannibalism. I am curious about what prompted you to take this on. And what connections can you make of that story that is relevant in our society today?
Bora:
You will know because you lived in Korea, that's how I feel about Korean society. That's how I've always felt about Korean society. Men eat men, like we all have to eat each other or be eaten. That's what Korean society has come to. It promotes competition as though competition was the only thing that would make us better somehow. By better, I don't even know what that means, by better, you've become like, more powerful so that you can step on other people for no reason at all, and take their property, their time, their labor, and make yourself richer and go up the ladder so that nobody can touch you. And like otherwise you fall off the ladder and get beaten down. That's how I feel about Korean society but we all look very civilized and very polite while doing all that. So I thought maybe I could write a zombie story with all the zombies looking very normal and very polite and very civilized, (whereas) in Walking Dead, they're like, Oh, you can identify them (zombies) right away, those zombies that you are gonna run away from or attack them. But if the zombies look just like you, and they're living like, next door to you or walking on the streets, then it's way more scary.
Randy:
One of my favorite stories in your book, “A Song for Sleep” is about an AI elevator, who shows care and concern for an elderly woman in their building. What can you say about this story in particular, and how this connects to human mortality in a world that is fast becoming reliant on AI technology?
Bora:
I wrote that story because I miss my grandma. Oh, my grandma. I think it was around the 10-year anniversary of her death and I miss her. So that elevator is me. I want my grandma (back). I taught a science fiction class from Spring 2013 to 2021. We discussed a lot of different forms of artificial, not artificial intelligence, but artificial beings in general. So, including artificial intelligence, but also artificial hardware with different kinds of artificial intelligence. There are strong AI versus weak AI. And all my students—all my engineering students got really excited about it. They told me that with the technology that enables strong AI, we already have machines that think like human beings, and we will have more machines that (will) think more like human beings. The machines will be more human and the machines will be wiser compared to some politicians. So all my engineering students told me that with our current technology, it's almost impossible to create a machine that looks exactly like humans. So that was a revelation for me, we already have machines that think like human beings and as they gain more data, and as they learn how humans think and how humans feel, I think we may very shortly have machines that can feel or at least like process, the understanding of, or the reaction of emotional responses in their own way. It will be a mechanical way, it will be an artificial intelligence way of understanding emotion, not exactly the human way. But I think it's very possible that we will have machines that can understand human feelings. So maybe, if that's possible, then maybe we will have machines that will be more human in a good way than humans. Like, they will be better at feeling in their own way and they will be better at grieving because they will certainly remember better. And they have all the details about all the human lives that are put into their system as data. So maybe we'll have machines that will remember us and warn us better than we do. All human beings are busy eating each other. That's how I see it.
Randy:
Thank you for sharing that. Anton Hur is a translator for both Cursed Bunny and Your Utopia. Can you share with us how you collaborated together and what the process is like, of having your work being translated from Korean to English?
Bora:
It feels very magical. I don't know how Anton does it. He just appeared out of nowhere around 2018 at a book fair, I was at a publisher’s booth. I was trying to sell books. And this guy (Anton) came up and he started to open my books here and there. So I was trying to sell books and promote this author and that author. Then he picked up Cursed Bunny, and I didn't know what to say about my own book. So I shut up and that's it. He read the first few pages of my book because I didn't say anything about it. He liked the sentences, the style, for some reason. So he just decided that he wanted to translate that book, and he asked if the author was there. I completely misunderstood him because I never imagined why would (anyone) want to translate my book. So I said, “Yeah, I'm the author”, Anton was speaking, impeccable, perfect Korean, and I completely misunderstood him. He was like, “No, I want to translate this book, who's the author?” And I'm like, “I'm the author”. My friend who is another author came, and Anton actually translated their story before. So they knew Anton and they vouched for him. They translated Anton's Korean to me and said, “no Bora, calm down. He wants to translate your book.” And I'm like, why? Okay, whatever. So yeah, and then I forgot about it. Then he and then this British company contacted me and said, “Well do you want to take promo videos for your book?” And I'm like, “what?” They sent me the book, and then I found out that Anton won a PEN/Heim grant along the way. Anton is magical. And I was a bit oblivious, like completely oblivious of all the wonderful things that he did along the way. Thank you (Anton).
Randy:
What has the reception been like with your books from both the Korean and Western audiences?
Bora:
Cursed Bunny in Korean came out in 2017 for the first time and Your Utopia in 2021. The Korean audience largely ignored me because I was virtually unknown in Korea, I had a very small group of readers who really, really liked my stories, and I'm very thankful. But apart from them, like, apart from those true to the bones, sci fi readers outside and the general public, I was not very well known. So I was extremely surprised when my British publisher told me that Cursed Bunny was selling well by word of mouth. Then, the Booker International nomination came and it was just, it was a great shock in a good way, but it was a really big shock. And then my American publisher Algonquin Books said, “Everybody loved Cursed Bunny.” So why? I don't know. People seem to like Cursed Bunny. I don't know why. Thank you.
Randy:
What should readers expect when they read Your Utopia?
Bora:
Anton says it's a story about sad robots and how machines can be better at being human than humans. They (machines) can be better humans because they are programmed to do one thing or they're programmed to do certain things, and they just concentrate on that. So robots, Isaac Asimov actually wrote something similar. And I think it was in his short story collection iRobot. He said, a very, very ethical human being cannot be distinguished from a robot. A robot that follows the three rules of robotics. So a dedicated person who faithfully follows certain kinds of rules cannot be distinguished from a humanoid robot. That was his whole premise for his robot. Not just by robot floor, but his robot series and his entire robot worldview. And I was heavily influenced by that. So you can see a lot of that in Your Utopia. But also I have zombies space, zombies. And aliens. And yeah, so sad robots, zombies, aliens.
Randy:
Nice! So what goals and plans do you have for the rest of this year?
Bora:
I have Polish zombies. I'm translating book two and book three of a Polish zombie story. And it's very exciting, and it's very classically zombie. So it's really fun. And I'm also translating at the moment Mist-Bound: How To Glue Back Your Grandpa. This is by Malaysian author Daryll Kho. He is now based in Singapore and this is his first book, and I'm about two-thirds finished now. In this book, Daryl’s father had dementia and suffered for a long time before he passed. Three months after his father passed, his daughter was born. So Daryl said he was always sad that his daughter and his father missed each other. So in this story, he imagined his daughter saving his father from this magical spell that made him lose his mind. So Mist-Bound, written from his father’s granddaughter's point of view. Daryll is a middle aged cis-hetero Asian man and it is beautifully feminist. So it's a story about grandpa and granddaughter, which is very rare. You don't see that kind of storyline a lot. It's (also) about a mother-daughter relationship, sister relationship as does the grandma. It's kind of rare and it's very beautiful. The grandmother is very strong, very graceful. The granddaughter is a mischievous, energetic teenager who loves her grandpa and wants to save him. They go through a lot of magical quests and adventures together. I really liked this story. And I liked the fact that it has a lot of Asian mythical elements like Asian mythical monsters, and Asian mythical creatures and Asian fairies. Because he, Daryll made a point of like, teaching his own (daughter). He actually discussed the book with his daughter and she participated in writing this book. So Darrell wanted to give that Asian heritage and legacy to his daughter. So I really liked that too. A lot of fantasy, fantasy adventure books feature a US setting that is vaguely medieval European; and this book is very distinctly Asian. And that's why I want Korean readers to see that.
Randy:
I got one last question. What is one fun fact about you?
Bora
I don't know if this is fun. I learned Romanian for two months and I can say hello in Romanian. That's kind of it. (laughs)
Great interview!! I’m halfway through Your Utopia right now, and I’m glad I waited to read this to avoid spoilers. Lol Thanks for providing so many insights into Bora Chung’s life and work!