Midnight Timetable: A Novel in Ghost Stories

From the author and translator of the National Book Award finalist and Booker Prize shortlisted Cursed Bunny, comes a novel-in-ghost-stories, set in a mysterious research center that houses cursed objects, where those who open the wrong door might find it's disappeared behind them, or that the echoing footsteps they're running from are their own...

The acclaimed Korean horror and sci-fi writer's goosebump-inducing new book follows an employee on the night shift at the Institute. They soon learn why some employees don't last long at the center. The handkerchief in Room 302 once belonged to the late mother of two sons, whose rivalry imbues the handkerchief with undue power and unravels the lives of those who seek to possess it. Meanwhile a live-streaming, ghost-chasing employee steals a cursed sneaker down the hall, but later finds he can't escape its tread. The cat in Room 206 begins to reveal the crimes of its former family, wanting to understand its own path to the Institute's dimly lit halls.

But Chung's haunted institute isn't just a chilling place to play. As in her astounding collections Cursed Bunny and Your Utopia, these violent allegories subtly excavate the horrors of animal cosmetic testing, "conversion therapy," domestic abuse, and late-stage capitalism. Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny, and deeply political, Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time's greatest imaginations.

Author: Bora Chung
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 09/30/2025
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.00w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9781643756639


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 07/18/2025 pg. 1
Publishers Weekly 07/28/2025
Booklist 08/01/2025
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2025

About the Author
Bora Chung is a writer and translator whose works include the National Book Award finalist and International Booker Prize-shortlisted Cursed Bunny and Your Utopia. She has an MA in Russian Studies from Yale University and a PhD in Slavic literature from Indiana University. She has taught Russian language and literature and science fiction at Yonsei University and translates modern literary works from Russian and Polish into Korean.

Anton Hur is the author of Toward Eternity and the translator of many iconic Korean SFF works including Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny, Kim Choyeop's If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light, Lee Young-do's The Bird That Drinks Tears, Kim Sung-il's Blood of the Old Kings, and Park Seolyeon's A Magical Girl Retires.