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Book Cover for: At Night He Lifts Weights, Kang Young-Sook

At Night He Lifts Weights

Kang Young-Sook

A disquieting vision of ecological dystopia in a collection by a major Korean writer.

An artist is plagued by desire for her mysterious double as disease spreads through an uncanny suburban landscape. An elderly woman suspects the old man who lifts weights in her neighborhood playground of being responsible for a spate of murders. While elsewhere, a woman who believes she's been exposed to radioactive radiation inherits a warehouse where those fleeing the city can store their possessions.

Beneath the calm surface of the stories collected here, Kang Young-sook offers a disquieting vision of a society grappling with ecological catastrophe and unplaceable forms of loss.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Transit Books
  • Publish Date: Nov 14th, 2023
  • Pages: 225
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.90in - 5.20in - 0.70in - 0.50lb
  • EAN: 9781945492709
  • Categories: Short Stories (single author)DystopianLiterary

About the Author

Young-Sook, Kang: - Kang Young-Sook is the author of four novels, including the award-winning Rina, and five short story collections. She often writes about the female grotesque, delving into varying genres as urban noir, fantasy, and ecofiction. Since her debut in 1998, she has received numerous awards, such as the Hanguk Ilbo Literature Prize, Kim Yujeong Literary Award, and Lee Hyo-seok Literature Award, among others. She was most recently a resident at the National Centre for Writing, and currently teaches creative writing at Ewha Womans University and Korea National University of Arts.


Hong, Janet: - Janet Hong is a writer and translator based in Vancouver, Canada. She won the TA First Translation Prize and the 16th LTI Korea Translation Award for her translation of Han Yujoo's The Impossible Fairy Tale, which was a finalist for both the PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, and longlisted for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award. She has translated Ha Seong-nan's Flowers of Mold, Ancco's Bad Friends, and Keum Suk Gendry-Kim's Grass.

Praise for this book

"This powerful collection strikingly depicts alienation, catastrophic loss, and disaster in ravaged landscapes....Young-sook's perceptive stories provide an unwavering and honest gaze at human nature."--Publishers Weekly

"Much as the title of this collection evokes a kind of physical exertion, so too do the stories within hum with a visceral quality. Sometimes, that quality works to turn the bizarre into something familiar; at others, it magnifies the extraordinary and often disconcerting experiences of these stories' protagonists."--Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders

"Perceptive and subversive, the stories in At Night He Lifts Weights vary in tone and genre, but each is singularly captivating, swirling around themes of loss -- ecological destruction, loneliness, and death. Each has a subtle illusion of calm that conceals what lies below in the unnerving depths."--Pierce Alquist, Book Riot