The Midnight Timetable
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An employee in a mysterious research institute discovers the truths behind the curious objects kept in its laboratories and why so many employees before them no longer work there. The short ghost tales in The Midnight Timetable are equal parts unsettling, political and darkly funny, highlighting Chung's talent as both a thrilling storyteller and one of Korean literature's most brilliant, insightful and profound voices.
2025's Best Translated Fiction
Synopsis
In a labyrinthine research facility where those who open the wrong door might find it's disappeared behind them, or that the echoing footsteps they're running from are their own, an unnamed protagonist begins their night shift under the watchful eye of the building's enigmatic senior guard.
Each evening, as the fluorescent lights hum and the silence grows heavier, the guard shares another story - of cursed objects hidden behind security glass, of lives unspooled by vengeance, sorrow or revelation. These tales are not mere ghost stories. They're warnings. Lessons. Or perhaps confessions.
As the nights stretch on and reality frays, the protagonist starts to suspect that the building itself is alive with malevolent intent - that the objects aren't just cursed, but waiting. Watching.
Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny and deeply political, The Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time's greatest imaginations.
Publisher information
- Publisher: John Murray Press
- ISBN: 9780349705170
- Number of pages: 208
- Dimensions: 218 x 140 x 18 mm
- Weight: 301g
- Languages: English





















