A seductive, disorienting novel that manipulates the fragile line between dreams and reality, by South Korea's leading contemporary writer &nbsp; A startling and boundary-pushing novel, Untold Night and Day tells the story of a young woman's journey through Seoul over the course of a night and a day. It's 28-year-old Ayami's final day at her box-office job in Seoul's audio theater. Her night is spent walking the sweltering streets of the city with her former boss in search of Yeoni, their missing elderly friend, and her day is spent looking after a mysterious, visiting poet. Their conversations take in art, love, food, and the inaccessible country to the north. &nbsp; Almost immediately, in the heat of Seoul at the height of the summer, order gives way to chaos as the edges of reality start to fray, with Ayami becoming an unwitting escort into a fever-dream of increasingly tangled threads, all the while images of the characters' overlapping realities repeat, collide, change, and reassert themselves in this masterful work that upends the very structure of fiction and narrative storytelling and burns itself upon the soul of the reader. &nbsp; By one of the boldest and most innovative voices in contemporary Korean literature, and brilliantly realized in English by International Man Booker­-winning translator Deborah Smith, Bae Suah's hypnotic and wholly original novel asks whether more than one version of ourselves can exist at once, demonstrating the malleable nature of reality as we know it. &nbsp;

Unknown Night and Day: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Suah, Bae

Literary

Harry N. Abrams

A seductive, disorienting novel that manipulates the fragile line between dreams and reality, unfolding over a day and a night in the sweltering heat of Seoul’s summer, by South Korea's leading contemporary writer\nIt’s 28-year-old Ayami’s final day at her box-office job in Seoul’s only audio theater for the blind. The theater is shutting down and Ayami’s future is uncertain. 
Her last shift completed, Ayami walks the streets of the city with her former boss late into the night, searching for a mutual friend who is missing. Their conversations take in art, love, food, and the inaccessible country to the north. The next day, Ayami acts as a guide for a detective novelist visiting from abroad. Almost immediately, in the heat of Seoul at the height of the summer, order gives way to chaos as the edges of reality start to fray. Ayami enters a world of increasingly tangled threads, and the past intrudes upon the present as overlapping realities repeat, collide, change, and reassert themselves. 
Blisteringly original, Untold Night and Day upends the very structure of fiction and narrative storytelling and burns itself upon the soul of the reader. By one of the boldest and most innovative voices in contemporary Korean literature, and masterfully realized in English by Man Booker International Prize–winning translator Deborah Smith, Bae Suah’s hypnotic novel asks whether more than one version of ourselves can exist at once, demonstrating the malleable nature of reality as we know it.

Untold Night and Day: A Novel

Nominated for the PEN Translation Prize and the Best Translated Book Award
A nameless narrator passes through her life, searching for meaning and connection in experiences she barely feels. For her, time and identity blur, and all action is reaction. She can’t quite understand what motivates others to take life seriously enough to focus on anything—for her existence is a loosely woven tapestry of fleeting concepts. From losing her virginity to mindless jobs and a splintered, unsupportive family, the lessons learned have less to do with the reality we all share and more to do with the truth of the imagination, which is where the narrator focuses to discover herself.

Nowhere to Be Found

Amazon Crossing

'As cryptic and compelling as a fever dream... Bae Suah is one of the most unique and adroit literary voices working today' Sharlene Teo\nFinishing her last shift at Seoul's only audio theatre for the blind, Kim Ayami heads into the night with her former boss, searching for a missing friend. The following day, she looks after a visiting poet, a man who is not as he seems. Unfolding over a night and a day in the sweltering summer heat, their world's order gives way to chaos, the edges of reality start to fray, and the past intrudes on the present in increasingly disorientating ways.\nUntold Night and Day is a hallucinatory feat of storytelling from one of the most radical voices in contemporary Korean literature.\n'Highly original... Once I finished it, much of it slipped into my subconscious' Daily Telegraph

Untold Night and Day: Bae Suah

Contemporary

Vintage

From the author nominated for the Best Translated Book Award and the PEN Translation Prize "Bae Suah offers the chance to unknow―to see the everyday afresh and be defamiliarized with what we believe we know―which is no small offering."―Sophie Hughes, Music &amp; Literature
Near the beginning of A Greater Music, the narrator, a young Korean writer, falls into an icy river in the Berlin suburbs, where she's been housesitting for her on-off boyfriend Joachim. This sets into motion a series of memories that move between the hazily defined present and the period three years ago when she first lived in Berlin. Throughout, the narrator's relationship with Joachim, a rough-and-ready metalworker, is contrasted with her friendship with a woman called M, an ultra-refined music-loving German teacher who was once her lover.
A novel of memories and wandering, A Greater Music blends riffs on music, language, and literature with a gut-punch of an emotional ending, establishing Bae Suah as one of the most exciting novelists working today.
Bae Suah, one of the most highly acclaimed contemporary Korean authors, has published more than a dozen works and won several prestigious awards. She has also translated several books from the German, including works by W. G. Sebald, Franz Kafka, and Jenny Erpenbeck. Her first book to appear in English, Nowhere to be Found, was longlisted for a PEN Translation Prize.
Deborah Smith's literary translations from the Korean include two novels by Han Kang (The Vegetarian and Human Acts), and two by Bae Suah, (A Greater Music and Recitation).

A Greater Music

Open Letter

"Bae Suah offers the chance to un-know—to see the every-day afresh and be defamiliarized with what we believe we know—which is no small offering."—Music &amp; Literature
The meeting between a group of emigrants and a mysterious, wandering actress in an empty train station sets the stage for Recitation, a fragmentary yet lyrical meditation on language, travel, and memory by South Korea's most prominent contemporary female author. As the actress recounts the fascinating story of her stateless existence, an unreliable narrator and the interruptions of her audience challenge traditional notions of storytelling and identity.

Recitation

United States

Deep Vellum Publishing

Weiße Nacht: Roman

Suhrkamp Verlag AG

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