Honford Star

07/06/2024

Catch up with The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre author Cho Yeeun and Professor Jieun Kiaer tomorrow at the Korean Cultural Centre UK tomorrow in London! RSVP here: https://buff.ly/4e2pEOJ

05/06/2024

Catherine Taylor describes the stories in Your Utopia as "wonderful: icy, unsettling, imbued with world-sorrow" in the Irish Times.

Read the article: https://buff.ly/3Wyb6Ak
Get your copy: https://buff.ly/3RPZXH9

30/05/2024

Join us at the Korean Cultural Centre UK in conversation with The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre author Cho Yeeun on the 8th of June 2024!

RSVP here: https://buff.ly/4e2pEOJ

Photo credit: 혜란

20/05/2024

"Takahashi’s answer to the question “What is war?” seems to be, “Something that never makes sense.”" - Alison Fincher, Book Reviews Asia.

Read the review: https://buff.ly/3Q8INo4

Get your copy: https://buff.ly/49NCw86

16/05/2024

Happy publication day for The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by Cho Yeeun, translated by Yewon Jung! Grab your copy wherever books are available!

At New Seoul Park, Korea’s greatest theme park, an enigmatic man tempts visitors with a mysterious jelly candy that promises an unbreakable bond. As the sun beats down on a muggy summer afternoon, a child separated from her disinterested parents, a single mother striving to create a memorable day on a shoestring budget, and a couple on the brink of splitting up, all end up tasting this ominous candy. Little do they know that a sinister force lurks beneath the innocent facade. The sweet and innocent soon turns grotesque as the jelly becomes the catalyst for a sticky, sweet massacre.

Masterfully translated by Yewon Jung, The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre weaves a chilling tale of deceptive sweetness and the body horror of slowly melting into your loved ones.

https://buff.ly/3UmvfIi

15/05/2024

Sarah Shaffi explores "why fiction from Korea and Japan has become so popular with English-language readers" for The Booker Prizes

Read the article:

As well as being recognised by International Booker Prize judges year after year, fiction from Japan and Korea is booming among English-speaking audiences, for a variety of reasons

07/05/2024

"I feel that the more I protest, the less “weirdly” I write."— Bora Chung's interview with Sohini Basak for The Hindu.

Read the interview: https://buff.ly/3PY0CpL
Get your copy of Your Utopia: https://buff.ly/3RPZXH9

03/05/2024

Your Utopia is featured in Book Riot's Spring 2024 Must-Read list!
https://buff.ly/4aRt98R

01/05/2024

Cannibals is a "hauntingly beautiful japanese novella" and "everything is written with a precision that borders on poetry"— says in their review over at .mag

Read it here: https://buff.ly/3UiDJyK
Watch Willow's video book review here: https://buff.ly/4aWgEZy

26/04/2024

24/04/2024

Your Utopia "contains another set of imaginative pieces, with the same measured prose belying the horrors lurking within, and in many ways it’s perhaps a more cohesive collection"—Tony, Tony's Reading List.

Read the review here: https://buff.ly/3Umjh18
Get your copy: https://buff.ly/3RPZXH9

08/04/2024

"Ninth Building is not a straightforward, linear novel nor is it a memoir; it sits somewhere in between." - Kiran Gill, .

Read the review: https://buff.ly/49YF2sA
Get your copy: https://buff.ly/48NeU38

05/04/2024

"No paramedics are on their way. Not a single phone is working. Everywhere, it
reeks of a sweet, sickening smell. Something strange is happening."—The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by Cho Yeeun (translated by Yewon Jung).

Get your copy: https://buff.ly/3UmvfIi

05/04/2024

📚 Join us for our Korean Book Club session featuring "The Specters of Algeria" by Hwang Yeo Jung and translated by Yewon Jung (Publisher Honford Star)

Delve into this literary gem in May as we explore the intricate layers of politics and human nature in this captivating novel.

Follow the journey of a group of dramatists who challenge the South Korean military dictatorships of the twentieth century by distributing copies of Karl Marx's only surviving play. Their actions shape the lives of two children, Yul and Jing, leading them on divergent paths across Seoul and Europe. Now, Cheolsu, a dissatisfied employee at a community theatre, unravels the truth behind "The Specters of Algeria," questioning the absurdity of the human condition.

🗓️ Date: May 16
⏰ Time: 7 PM - 9 PM
📍 Venue: Korean Cultural Center
💬 Free admission with registration required. Email [email protected] with "Korean Book Club" in the title, including your name and phone number to register.

📚 The book will be available at Waterstones Brussels

For more info, see our homepage.
https://brussels.korean-culture.org/en/646/board/438/read/129065

29/03/2024

Happy publication day to Cannibals by Shinya Tanaka, translated by Kalau Almony.

"The excellent translation by Kalau Almony maintains the tension beautifully as the story whirls in a vortex towards its skilfully rendered conclusion." —The Irish Times

During the hot, dry summer of 1988, in a forgotten neighborhood known as the riverside, seventeen-year-old Shinogaki Toma is entangled in a desperate struggle against what he believes to be his fate to become his sadistic father. Consumed by a fear that he will harm his girlfriend, Toma’s downward spiral into depression and instability becomes increasingly intense. Toma’s mother left his father long ago and now lives nearby as a fishmonger. Using the hook that replaced the hand she lost during wartime bombings, she guts the eels Toma catches in the sewage-filled river for his father to eat. Things come to a head when Kotoko, his father’s live in girlfriend, becomes pregnant and makes the decision to leave the riverside for a better life.

Translated from Japanese by Kalau Almony, Tanaka Shinya’s Akutagawa Prize-winning masterpiece, Cannibals, sold over 200,000 copies in Japan and was adapted into a movie by Cannes Film Festival-winner Shinji Aoyama.

https://buff.ly/3veQsJQ

21/03/2024

Publishing later this month, CANNIBALS by Shinya Tanaka (translated by Kalau Almony) was a cult hit upon its release in Japan, selling over 200,000 copies and winning the Akutagawa Award. It was adapted into an award-winning movie by Shinji Aoyama.

⭐Available in trade paperback and ebook from honfordstar.com⭐

“At moments, scenes that first appear a haphazard spattering of color are revealed to be carefully calculated, transforming grotesque episodes into something beautifully poetic.”
—Amy Yamada, author of "Bedtime Eyes"

“The women surrounding the two men in CANNIBALS are depicted with a gravitas only Tanaka could muster.”
—Yoko Ogawa, author of "The Memory Police"

🎬Promotional movie stills from the movie adaptation of the novel titled "The Backwater", directed by Shinji Aoyama

20/03/2024

The Specters of Algeria is a "labyrinthine novel [that] bears rereading, as moments that were baffling on first readthrough settle into clarity when revisited." - Laurel Taylor,

Read the review: https://buff.ly/3Ns24iR

Get your copy: https://buff.ly/3P4kKWQ

12/03/2024

Choi Jin-young's To the Warm Horizon (translated by Soje) carries "a particular melancholy" and offers a "unique glimpse into the lives of four women struggling to survive and love in a world they no longer recognize." - Rachel S. Cordasco,

Read the review: https://buff.ly/48IHuCB

Get your copy: https://buff.ly/3IwfW8Z

27/02/2024

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21/02/2024

"The imagined worlds here may not be utopian—but the reading experience is." - Kirkus Reviews ⭐

https://buff.ly/49gZwx1

13/02/2024

Happy publication day for Your Utopia by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur! Grab your copy wherever books are available!

By the internationally acclaimed author of Cursed Bunny, in another thrilling translation from the Korean by Anton Hur, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. “Nothing concentrates the mind like Chung’s terrors, which will shrivel you to a bouillon cube of your most primal instincts” (Vulture), yet these stories are suffused with Chung’s inimitable wry humor and surprisingly tender moments, too—often between unexpected subjects.

Chung’s writing is “haunting, funny, gross, terrifying—and yet when we reach the end, we just want more” (Alexander Chee). If you haven’t yet experienced the fruits of this singular imagination, Your Utopia is waiting.

https://buff.ly/3RPZXH9

02/02/2024

We're publishing The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by Cho Yeeun, translated by Yewon Jung, and cover design by Choi Jeeook in May 2024! Get your copy here: https://buff.ly/3UmvfIi

29/01/2024

Finger Bone is a "brutal, harrowing novel that should be considered a classic of war literature" - Sean Guynes,
https://buff.ly/3u4YUex

26/01/2024

Sign up for the Honford Star newsletter and receive all the latest updates about your favourite books - https://buff.ly/3vFYE65

18/01/2024

Today on WWB: a treat for fans of Bora Chung’s “Cursed Bunny.” The short story “A Song for Sleep,” narrated by an elevator growing increasingly curious about an elderly tenant, is a sci-fi riff on the concept of the Internet of Things. It’s drawn from Chung’s book “Your Utopia,” out this month from Honford Star and Algonquin Books and translated from Korean by Anton Hur. https://buff.ly/3S3CbaI

16/01/2024

Your Utopia is on Bustle's '6 Books That'll Help You Start Your Year Off Right' list!

Bustle’s columnist recommends a collection of old and new titles to read this January.

12/01/2024

Your Utopia got a starred Booklist review!

Read the review:
https://www.booklistonline.com/Your-Utopia-/pid=9787644

Pre-order your copy: https://honfordstar.com/products/your-utopia-by-bora-chung

09/01/2024

Your Utopia, the book on every 2024 list, is just around the corner! Publishing 13 February 2024.

"These stories are weird and wonderful and give me the feeling of being in the passenger seat of a car speeding in a tunnel." - Melissa Higgins, Goodreads reviewer.

Get your copy here: https://buff.ly/3RPZXH9

08/01/2024

Honford Star is an independent publisher based in Stockport, Greater Manchester. It publishes exciting literature from East Asia, be it...