God-Disease

Author(s): chang joon, an,
Binding: Paperback,
Date of Publication: 24/04/2025,
Pagination: 240 pages, Illustrations,
Series: N/A,
Imprint: Sarabande Books, Incorporated,
Published By: Sarabande Books, Incorporated,
Book Classification: Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),
Dimensions: 201 x 133 x 18
ISBN13/EAN/SKU: 9781956046335

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Winner of the 2023 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, selected by Manuel Muñoz.

Imagine a space where cities and municipalities are delineated only by letters. A place in flux, a freewheeling confluence that does not commit to being American, Korea, or even Korean American. This is where God-Disease takes place. Strange things happen here. Identities warp and shift; sometimes they vanish altogether. In the titular story, a museum insect curator returns to her birth town, J Municipality, feeling empty and searching for answers to her mother’s absence; was it insanity that plagued her, or was it shin-byeong—god-disease? Equal parts Southern Korean Gothic and slipstream, the collection is a meditation on language, identity, and names, and how deceptively fragile they can be.