Blowfish: An award-winning and movingly introspective exploration of life, art and love from South Korea...

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Kyung-Ran Jo Chi-Young Kim

Blowfish

An award-winning and movingly introspective exploration of life, art and love from South Korea...

Kyung-Ran Jo, Chi-Young Kim

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English

WILDFIRE
29 July 2025

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Fiction in translation

'A book to chew on and savour, a deft delve into the intricacies of love and art'

Chicago Review of Books

'The narrative scatters the quiet beauty of human connection like constellations'

Kyung-sook Shin, author Please Look After Mom and Violets

'[A] strange, dark, lovely novel'

Lit Hub

'If you wanted to end your life instantly, perfectly, you needed practice and preparation.'

A sculptor and architect cross paths once in Seoul, and they meet again in Tokyo.

The sculptor has decided she is going to die. She is learning to prepare a fatal serving of blowfish. This was how her grandmother killed herself, in front of her husband and child. Delicate, artful but with a sense of guaranteed finality.

The architect's life has been marred by death. His elder brother leapt to his death from the fifth floor of an apartment building. He too is pondering his own exit from this life.

For the woman, the man is a pitstop on the road to her own suicide. For the man, the woman is a way to forestall his death and offer him an exit. Through the impressions they leave on each other, they reflect on their own lives.

Taking readers through various urban spaces of Seoul and Tokyo, Blowfish delves into the inner lives of two people contemplating their failures in love and art.

What truly makes life worth living?

By: Kyung-Ran Jo
Translated by: Chi-Young Kim
Imprint: WILDFIRE
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 212mm, Width: 134mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 300g
ISBN: 9781035435234
ISBN 10: 1035435233
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 29 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Kyung-Ran Jo made her literary debut in 1996 when her short story The French Optical Shop won the Dong-a Ilbo New Writer's Contest. She is the author of five story collections and three novels. Her novel Tongue was published in the US by Bloomsbury in 2009. She is also the recipient of the Hyundae Munhak Award and the Dong-In Literary Award, among others. Blowfish is her second novel to be translated and published in the English language.

Reviews for Blowfish: An award-winning and movingly introspective exploration of life, art and love from South Korea

Jo's atmospheric writing distills the novel's mood from its settings (Seoul is ""the color of oxidized blood""; a Tokyo fish market is ""slick and slimy with water and blood and discarded guts""), while details about the sculptor's family history inform her chilling determination to die. It's a memorable existential tale. * Publisher's Weekly * Remarkably lyrical . . . Blowfish is composed with a simmering desperation Jo manages with impressive control; Kim is again a splendid translator . . . Jo's complex exploration of living and dying becomes a mindful journey toward possibilities. -- Terry Hong * Shelf Awareness *