Blowfish - by Kyung-Ran Jo (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Blowfish is a postmodern novel in four parts, alternating between the respective stories of a female sculptor and a male architect. Death is the motif connecting these parallel lives. The sculptor's grandmother killed herself by eating poisonous blowfish in front of her husband and child, while the architect's elder brother leapt to his death from the fifth floor of an apartment building. Now, both protagonists are contemplating their own suicides. The sculptor and architect cross paths once in Seoul, and meet again in Tokyo, while the sculptor is learning to prepare a fatal serving of blowfish. The narrative loosely approximates a love story, but this is no romance in the normal sense. For the woman, the man is a pitstop on the road to her own suicide. For the man, the woman forestalls death and offers him a final chance. Through the conflicting impressions they have of one another, the characters look back on their lives; it is only the desire to create art that calls them back from death. Evoking the heterogeneous urban spaces of Seoul and Tokyo, Blowfish delves into the inner life of a woman contemplating her failures in love and art. Jo's fierce will to write animates the novel; the lethal taste of blowfish, which one cannot help but eat even though one may die in doing so, approximates the inexorable pains of writing a novel."--

Book Synopsis

"Postmodernism is alive and well in Kyung-Ran Jo's latest . . . Blowfish is a book to chew on and savor, a deft delve into the intricacies of love and art." --Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books

For readers of Han Kang and Sheila Heti, an atmospheric, melancholic novel about a successful sculptor who decides to commit suicide by artfully preparing and deliberately eating a lethal dish of blowfish.

Blowfish is a postmodern novel in four parts, alternating between the respective stories of a female sculptor and a male architect. Death is the motif connecting these parallel lives. The sculptor's grandmother killed herself by eating poisonous blowfish in front of her husband and child, while the architect's elder brother leapt to his death from the fifth floor of an apartment building. Now, both protagonists are contemplating their own suicides. The sculptor and architect cross paths once in Seoul, and meet again in Tokyo, while the sculptor is learning to prepare a fatal serving of blowfish.
The narrative loosely approximates a love story, but this is no romance in the normal sense. For the woman, the man is a pitstop on the road to her own suicide. For the man, the woman forestalls death and offers him a final chance. Through the conflicting impressions they have of one another, the characters look back on their lives; it is only the desire to create art that calls them back from death.
Evoking the heterogeneous urban spaces of Seoul and Tokyo, Blowfish delves into the inner life of a woman contemplating her failures in love and art. Jo's fierce will to write animates the novel; the lethal taste of blowfish, which one cannot help but eat even though one may die in doing so, approximates the inexorable pains of writing a novel.

Review Quotes

"A subtle, searing masterpiece."
--Kerry Cardoza, Chicago Reader

"Postmodernism is alive and well in Kyung-Ran Jo's latest . . . Blowfish is a book to chew on and savor, a deft delve into the intricacies of love and art."
--Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books

"When I see a novel described as 'atmospheric' and 'melancholic' I'm immediately foaming at the mouth to read it . . . I can't wait to get my hands on this strange, dark, lovely novel."
--McKayla Coyle, Lit Hub

"Languid and moody, this novel explores art, life, love and loss in elegant and deliberate prose."
--Ms. Magazine

"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

"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."
--Publishers Weekly

"This novel invites the readers into a special experience. It follows a woman who, once consumed by thoughts of death, gradually turns toward life, a journey that becomes the author's profound meditation on the nature of art itself. Amid the turbulence of crisis, the narrative scatters the quiet beauty of human connection like constellations across the story. The writer speaks, with urgent tenderness, to the belief that these glimmering moments of relation are in themselves the essence of art."
--Kyung-sook Shin, author Please Look After Mom and Violets

"A story about death paradoxically inspires the strong vitality of life. With piercing insight on memory and family, lyrical meditation about love and art, Blowfish is a tenacious and delicate work of fiction."
--JM Lee, author of The Investigation and Artificial Truth

"Kyung-Ran Jo's Blowfish, rendered into English with poised and perceptive grace by Chi-Young Kim, is not merely a novel to entertain . . . it invites readers into a profound exploration of the elusive contours of identity, the lingering ache of trauma, and the fragile, often unspoken language of human connection . . . With each precisely chosen phrase and carefully rendered scene, Jo crafts a world that is both hauntingly beautiful and profoundly unsettling . . . This is a book that will linger in the quiet yet unsettling corners of the mind."
--Tony Huang, Hong Kong Review

About the Author

Kyung Ran Jo made her literary debut in 1996 when her short story "The French Optical" 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 English by Bloomsbury in 2009. She is also the recipient of the Hyundae Munhak Award and the Dongin Prize, among others.