God-Disease - by An Chang Joon (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2023 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, selected by Manuel Muñoz.

Imagine a space where cities and municipalities are delineated only by letters. A place in flux, a freewheeling confluence that does not commit to being American, Korea, or even Korean American. This is where God-Disease takes place. Strange things happen here. Identities warp and shift; sometimes they vanish altogether. In the titular story, a museum insect curator returns to her birth town, J Municipality, feeling empty and searching for answers to her mother's absence; was it insanity that plagued her, or was it shin-byeong--god-disease?

Equal parts Southern Korean Gothic and slipstream, the collection is a meditation on language, identity, and names, and how deceptively fragile they can be.

Review Quotes

"Astonishing. . . . What a bracing, challenging book for a writer in early career, so brave in its willingness to unnerve--and move--us, by equal and astounding measure."
--Manuel Muñoz

"Like all great writers, an chang joon creates unforgettable characters, keenly observed. These are intimate portraits of diasporic Koreans searching for revelations that may or may not save their lives. With language sharp enough to cut glass, these stories explore grief, but also desire. Darkly humorous and full of incident, God-Disease will have readers reconsidering the state of their own lives and begging for more stories."
--Maurice Carlos Ruffins, author of The American Daughters

"an chang joon weaves horror, the grotesque and speculative elements into this striking story collection. With its arresting imagery and incisive portrayal of late stage capitalism, God-Disease marks the arrival of a rising talent."
--Ana Reyes, author of The House in The Pines

"With God-Disease, an chang joon has delivered a stunning collection of heartbreaking stories of men and women in and out of Korea navigating the small pleasures and failures of everyday life--each story tinged with something that lives just out of view--a magic? a fantasy?--I don't know, but it is something akimbo and uncanny and unsettlingly real."
--Manuel Gonzales, author of The Regional Office is Under Attack!

About the Author

an chang joon was born in Seoul, Korea, but raised somewhere between Uzbekistan, Korea, and the eastern coast of the United States. His writing explores borders, not as a flat line, but as a liminal space of their own. He is never entirely sure on how to navigate between his two and a half names. His prose can be found in Barnstorm and Blue Earth Review, and was the runner-up for the Gulf Coast Review's 2022 and 2023 Fiction Contest. He is the Korean translator for Nellie Hermann's novel, The Season of Migration. He lives between Baton Rouge, LA, and Seoul, Korea.