Ask critics or readers to name top Korean contemporary writers, and Bora Chung’s name would come up within seconds.

Her unique, unsettling blend of speculative fiction, horror, folktales and societal critique has seen her shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and National Book Award with Cursed Bunny, and Your Utopia was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.

She returns with The Midnight Timetable, a novel-in-ghost-stories that is equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny and deeply political.

And in a fascinating other thread to Chung’s work, she holds a PhD in Slavic literature and translates contemporary Russian and Polish literature into Korean.

Paula Morris meets Chung in her Aotearoa New Zealand debut appearance to hear about her diverse work across genres and languages.