Hye-young Pyun was born in 1972. Sheearned her undergraduate degree in creative writing and graduate degree in Korean literature from Hanyang University. Her published works include the short story collections Aoi Garden, To The Kennels, Evening Courtship, and Night Passes; and the novels City of Ash and Red, They Went to the Western Forest, The Law of Lines, The Hole, and Let The Dead. She has received the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award, the Yi Hyo-Seok Literature Prize, the Today's Young Writer Award, the Dong-in Literary Award, the Yi Sang Literary Award, and the Contemporary Literature (Hyundai Munhak) Award. Her novel TheHole was the 2017 winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, and City of Ash and Red was an NPR Great Read. In 2019, she was awarded the Kim Yujeong Literary Award for her short story "Hotel Window." Her short stories have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and Words Without Borders. She currently teaches creative writing at Myongji University and lives in Seoul, Korea.
Sora Kim-Russell's translations include, besides The Hole, City of Ash and Red, and The Law of Lines by Hye-young Pyun, Un-su Kim's The Plotters; Hwang Sok-yong's At Dusk, which was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize; and Suah Bae's Nowhere to be Found. Her full list of publications can be found at sorakimrussell.com. She lives in Seoul, South Korea.
Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award
"A Korean take on Misery," --Time magazine, "Top 10 Thrillers to
Read This Summer" "Hye-young Pyun's The Hole is a masterwork of
suspense, and a profound meditation on grief, solitude, and
secrecy. At once unsettling and richly moving, The Hole is vital
novel, a gift from a wildly inventive writer." --Laura van den
Berg, author of Find Me "By the time Hye-young Pyun's taut
psychological thriller The Hole has tightened its grip on the
unsuspecting mind, it's too late to escape. The shadows lurking in
the novel become manifest, and dark poetic justice reigns. . . .
The Hole is an unshakable novel about the unfathomable depths of
human need." --Shelf Awareness "Pyun offers her work to an
international audience on her own terms, by speaking directly to
the state of alienation made familiar to much of the world by
globalization. . . . The amnesiac protagonist is left unnamed
because he is us."--Jae Won Chung, Boston Review "Like Hitchcock or
Abe, Pyun peers head on into the unnerving depths of human grief
with the most methodical of eye, logically narrating our descent
into such a clear, uncanny terror we hope to remind ourselves its
only just a book, one wound from end to end with an exquisite magic
that refuses to let go." --Blake Butler, author of 300,000,000
"While reading The Hole, you'll find yourself suddenly doubting
everything. Pyun is asking us a tough and terrifying question that
none can dodge: Is your life safe?" --Kyung-sook Shin, New York
Times bestselling author of Please Look After Mom "Winner of many
of Korea's top literary prizes and accolades, Pyun proves to be an
effectively chilling storyteller whose expert narrative
manipulations should earn new followers." --Booklist "An absorbing
look at the struggle to find meaning in life's little passages,
arguments, and disagreements."--SF Book Review "[Be] wary; you'll
be thinking and dreaming this novel long after you've put it down."
--Words Without Borders July 2017 Watchlist "A claustrophobic,
riveting story calculated to get under your skin."--Korean
Literature Now "Fissures in life offer a glimpse of the truth that
starts not from others but from us and that we are all oblivious
to." --Maeil Business News Korea "The Hole is rooted in character
but has the suspense of a thriller. . . For readers who are
unafraid of knowing that our life and our loved ones are strangers
to us." --Krys Lee, World Literature Today "Reminiscent of Stephen
King's Misery, Hye-young Pyun's The Hole shows off her unique style
of steadily rising terror with this dark tale of a man utterly cut
off from his life." --Munhwa Ilbo (Korea) "[A] disconcerting and
often sinister story." --Korea Herald
Ask a Question About this Product More... |