Synopses & Reviews
Winner of the Munhakdongne Novel Award, South Korea’s most prestigious literary prize.
Cabinet 13 looks exactly like any normal filing cabinet... Except this cabinet is filled with files on the ‘symptomers’, humans whose strange abilities and bizarre experiences might just mark the emergence of a new species.
But to Mr Kong, the harried office worker whose job it is to look after the cabinet, the symptomers are a headache; especially the one who won’t stop calling every day, asking to be turned into a cat.
A richly funny and fantastical novel about the strangeness at the heart of even the most everyday lives, from one of South Korea’s most acclaimed novelists.
Review
“[A] brilliant mosaic novel... These stories straddle the lines between science fiction, fantasy, fairy tale, and acute reality.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
“Deftly translated by award-winning Halbert, Kim’s latest import... again showcases his sly, surreal, dark humor about all the ways humans are, well, not particularly human.” Booklist
Review
“Un-su Kim is a tremendous writer.” Scott Smith, author of A Simple Plan
About the Author
Un-Su Kim made his debut as a writer in 2002 through the Jinju News Fall Literary Contest with short stories, Easy Breezy Writing Class and Dan Valjean Street and the 2003 DongA Ilbo Spring Literary Contest with his mid-length novel Farewell, Friday. His first full-length novel The Cabinet received the 12th Munhakdongne Novel Award.