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A Genealogical Reconstruction of Jung Bo-ra’s Horror Novels - Focusing on Cursed Bunny, No One Will Know, and Death Is Always With You

  • Journal of Popular Narrative
  • 2026, 32(2), pp.13~46
  • DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2026.32.2.001
  • Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : May 10, 2026
  • Accepted : June 15, 2025
  • Published : June 30, 2026

Hong Duck-Gu 1

1국립군산대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to explore the popular narrative significance of works from Jung Bo-ra’s early and mid-career fantasy fiction that employ the conventions of horror, using a cultural genealogical approach. Chapter 1 critically examines the impact that the judging panel’s description of Jung Bo-ra—as “an author who traverses the boundaries of magical realism, horror, and science fiction”—made when Cursed Bunny was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker International Prize, on subsequent research trends, and presents the rationale for analyzing Jung Bo-ra’s novels through a cultural genealogical lens. Chapter 2 examined how the genre conventions of K-horror, epitomized by Home of the Legends, and J-horror, referred to as Japanese ghost stories, form the foundation of Jung Bo-ra’s horror. Chapter 3 focuses on Jung Bo-ra’s background as a scholar of Eastern European literature and translator, analyzing how Slavic fairy tales and folk tales, as well as the tragic events of modern and contemporary Eastern European history, are appropriated in her novels as forms of alienation and horror. Chapter 4 examines how Jung Bo-ra appropriates Stephen King and Viktor Shklovsky—whom she herself has identified as creative sources of her horror—to explore what Jung Bo-ra’s horror ‘defamiliarizes’ and what kinds of fears it generates through this process. As of 2026, Jung Bo-ra occupies a unique position within the Korean literary and cultural landscape. Much like the labels ‘socially critical horror’ or ‘the protesting writer’ that follow her, Jung Bo-ra’s novels are often understood—or misunderstood—as a utilitarian form driven by the objectives of social criticism and transformation. However, a review of Jung Bo-ra’s early and mid-career works—produced primarily for the online literary magazine Mirror since her debut in 2007—reveals that the origins of her fiction lie in a fascination with the sheer pleasure derived from scary and bizarre stories. The fact that the horror provided by Jung Bo-ra’s work can offer readers a unique kind of satisfaction demonstrates one way in which horror today gains vitality by intertwining with adjacent genres and being reproduced.

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