It’s a classic curse-gone-wrong narrative with characters facing improbable accidents, failing businesses and grisly deaths as the bunny takes hold and renders them unable to care about anything else. The narrator’s family is from a long line of cursed fetish makers who sell to those who want to wreak havoc.

Instead, the cursed bunny in question is a ‘cursed fetish’, in this case a lamp shaped like a rabbit sat beneath a tree and complete with a realistic looking, soft, and inviting fur. The titular story is not in fact about psychedelic Watership Down-esque rabbits as the cover might suggest, although anyone who has seen the 1978 film adaptation would agree that this would be perfectly horrific. Such a feature is important for stories that are exploring the horror of real-life systems like capitalism and patriarchy, although it may disappoint readers who are looking for more extreme horror. It may well take away from some of the more visceral horror but it also helps ground the stories rather than allowing them to become too fantastical. The feeling of being held at a slight remove from the events of the stories is interesting for a horror collection. Chung deftly moves between genres without losing her signature voice, an almost wry and detached style which is expertly crafted by the translator Anton Hur. However, horror runs through them all too, particularly body-horror which is an insidious presence throughout. Throughout the ten stories in this collection, Chung ranges from magical realism and fairy-tale to myth and science-fiction. Despite their brevity and oddness, these stories address the hidden (and not so hidden) horrors of capitalism, patriarchy, and insular communities. Bora Chung’s bizarre and queasy short stories were nominated for the 2022 International Booker Prize and it’s no surprise why.

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