K-LIT REVIEW Bora Chung's 'Your Utopia' offers the breath-giving sci-fi we needed
The cover of "Your Utopia" written by Bora Chung and translated to English by Anton Hur / Courtesy of Honford Star
As a university student, I needed a third-year art elective. Another science major had told me about a class that was popular among our cohort — a comparative literature course with a focus on science fiction. I needed no further convincing. I was already a fan of science fiction, and the course taught me new tools to enjoy and understand it further. The reading list was a great introduction to new works and authors, including Philip K. Dick, who I now count among my favorite authors.
"Your Utopia" by Bora Chung is a collection of eight short stories. Its nomination for the Philip K. Dick Award — one of the "Big 3" science fiction awards, along with the Nebula and Hugo awards — seems appropriate, as Dick was himself a prolific short story writer. It was the first Korean nomination for the award — fitting, since breaking new ground is something Chung does very well. Truly impressive science fiction requires a willingness to break down the barriers between the present and future, not just in technology but in perception, culture and experience. "Your Utopia" impresses with its unique characters and depth of experiences told within such short narratives.
Credit must be given to translator Anton Hur, who continues to provide top-notch delivery of Chung’s comic intent. “The VIPs who could doze off without consequence dozed off without consequences,” reads a sentence from the novel’s opening story, "The Centre for Immortality Research." It captures a nuance of wit that could have easily been overlooked in an effort to translate concisely rather than comically. The decision to leave certain administrative titles such as "bujang" and "gwajang" untranslated offers the reader a hidden curriculum of cultural and language education while immersing them in the murky responsibilities of satisfying varying degrees of an enduring bureaucracy. “But what could I do? I was a team player, and what’s more, a salary-receiver, which meant I had to see this through no matter what,” from the same story, perfectly captures Chung’s gift for relatability with her audience. Who among us can't identify with this sentiment, regardless of context?
Pathos, ethos and logos are all applied in her stories, though in varying dosages. Humor makes way for horror in "The End of the Voyage," a very original take on zombies and space travel. The eponymous story of the novel, the thrilling "Your Utopia," as well as the heart-wrenching "A Song for Sleep," both offer characters that are neither human nor even living: an artificial intelligence vehicle and an Internet of Things-connected apartment elevator, respectively. An elevator attempting to understand the end-of-life human experience and to offer care evokes as strong an emotional response as any tear-jerking drama, while the logical decision processes of an abandoned vehicle trying to fulfill and indeed construct a purpose still manage to convey suspense and desperation.
The theme of survival emerges as the stories contrast and complement each other. Survival, and by extension the perspectives of the survivors and their resulting isolation and alienation or camaraderie, are the common thread of the stories in "Your Utopia." The survivors of environmental destruction, discrimination, domestic violence, terrorist attack, viral outbreak or simply bureaucratic responsibility all have their stories told in a manner that is both imaginatively stimulating and emotionally penetrating. Sometimes a survivor is the protagonist, but in others, the protagonist observes the survivor. The stories’ dramatically different perspectives of diverse survival experiences build on each other to construct a lasting reader impression. A signature of short fiction is that few words are wasted, and Chung’s work demonstrates that efficiency. So much is told so well and so quickly. You realize how much she is making you think and feel, and that realization is cathartic.
Author Bora Chung poses before an interview in Seoul, March 6, 2023. Korea Times photo by Kim Young-won
The novel’s final story "To Meet Her" and the author’s note "The Act of Mourning" both reference Korea’s elusive Anti-Discrimination Act and the death of Staff Sgt. Byun Hee-soo, a transgender soldier who was unlawfully dismissed and later died in a suspected suicide. Chung describes her own participation in ritual prostration protests to support the Anti-Discrimination Act and the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. "I do not want to see any more people die." A stronger declaration of artist intent is hard to imagine.
Reading other collections of short fiction, I have often found it easy to move from one story to the next, perhaps even reading the whole collection in a single sitting. "Your Utopia" demands a break to process and consider the experiences and perspectives Chung shares. You realize you’ve been holding your breath with the characters. And perhaps you realize how often we are all holding our breath right now. We need to breathe to survive.
"Your Utopia" written by Bora Chung and translated by Anton Hur is available for purchase through dbbooks.co.kr.
Arlo Matisz is an economics professor at Chosun University in Gwangju.