With the Heart of a Ghost

Lim Sunwoo (translated by Chi-Young Kim)

With the Heart of a Ghost is a debut collection of eight fantastical stories translated by Chi-Young Kim (Whale) that explore feelings unseen, unconveyed, unexplainable.

The funny, meditative characters who inhabit this book are pulled far from their ordinary daily routines to stare straight into their own sorrows, however they manifest. Ghosts and otherworldly occurrences are folded seamlessly into author Lim Sunwoo’s quiet universe with stories buoyed by humor, warmth, and empathy for the lost and hurt among us.

A ghost who looks just like the narrator reflects her feelings back to her in a bun shop; mutant jellyfish take over the world and if you touch one you become one yourself; a heartbroken man becomes a tree in his ex’s apartment; the ghost of a wannabe K-pop star stuck in a vacuum cleaner wants out; Jugyeong helps a man hibernate by burying him up to his neck; Huiae, in deep conflict with her husband, reconnects with her strange old friend; Jo has lost his best friend–a gecko–but won't give up the search; and Suyeong plots revenge on a wild dog that killed her cats by channeling her inner cat.

For a moment, a short period of your everyday lives, each sparkling story asks you to look within, to encounter all that is desired and strange and possible in life and death.

PRAISE FOR WITH THE HEART OF A GHOST

“Sunwoo’s ordinary folks undergo extraordinary experiences. The oceans of “You’re Not Glowing” are overrun by mutant jellyfish; one touch turns a person into one. Horrifying, yet so many citizens freely seek transmogrification; an entire industry bloomed to infect and provide special tanks to help them change at home. Narrator’s boyfriend Gu, who works in dead jellyfish disposal, suggests she work tending in-tank clients. Results alter both. Another whose mirror image appears in a bun shop fears she’s died, but the “ghost” assures her she hasn’t, that it isn’t a ghost, and is equally puzzled at her own appearance. In these two stories, like the others, some otherworldly being or essence arrives to set the narrator on a better, surer path with a fair shot at happiness.” —E.B. Boatner, Lavender Magazine

"Lim Sunwoo captures the loneliness of modern-day life through soft and whimsical worldbuilding, putting her characters through unwanted magical circumstances in order to draw them closer to each other. A gem of magical realism reminding us what connects us all in the moments we forget." —Cameron Roper, North Figueroa Bookshop

"Reading Lim Sunwoo, I kept thinking about how to care for one's heart. It made me want to pluck out my heart and sit it down next to me as a ghost. I don't think my faint, floating heart will feel too lonely now." —Pyun Hye Yeong, author of The Hole