The Hole

A Korean take on Misery * Time *
Metaphorical holes abound in this superbly insidious and atmospheric chiller about caring and cruelty: grief, isolation, helplessness and existential fear * Guardian *
Korea’s answer to Stephen King … a thoughtful and elegant exploration of a relationship … increasingly unnerving * Observer *
Suspenseful, eerie and surprisingly profound * Big Issue *
A gripping read for fans of literary horror * The Bookseller *
A chilling psychological thriller … the reader is drawn in deeper with each new revelation * PA Media *
This book will stay with you long after you turn the last page. A skillful, layered exploration of where horror resides on the narrow terrain between care and cruelty, between love and loathing. * Heather Parry, author of Carrion Crow and Orpheus Builds a Girl *
Spare yet viscerally compelling, The Hole seizes you right from the powerful opening scene all the way to its nightmare conclusion. Masterfully unsettling. * Leon Craig, author of Parallel Hells *
While reading The Hole, you’ll find yourself suddenly doubting everything. * Kyung-sook Shin, New York Times bestselling author of Please Look After Mother *
Like Hitchcock or Abe, Pyun peers head on into the unnerving depths of human grief. * Blake Butler, author of 300,000,000 *

Hye-Young Pyun was born in 1972 in Seoul and earned her undergraduate degree in creative writing and graduate degree in Korean literature from Hanyang University. Her published works include the short story collections Aoi Garden, To the Kennels, Evening Courtship, and Night Passes; and the novels City of Ash and Red, They Went to the Western Forest, The Law of Lines, The Hole, and Let the Dead. She has received many awards in Korea, including the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award, the Yi Hyo-Seok Literature Prize, the Today’s Young Writer Award, the Dong-in Literary Award, the Yi Sang Literary Award, and the Contemporary Literature (Hyundai Munhak) Award. Her novel The Hole was the 2017 winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, and City of Ash and Red was an NPR Great Read. In 2019, she was awarded the Kim Yujeong Literary Award for her short story “Hotel Window”. Her short stories have been published in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and Words Without Borders. She currently teaches creative writing at Myongji University and lives in Seoul, Korea.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.