Short Stories: The Daemon Lover (Shirley Jackson) The Frozen Finger (Bora Chung)

This is a Short Story "Book" Club that focuses on sci fi/fantasy and horror short stories or novelettes. This month's stories are "The Daemon Lover" by Shirley Jackson (1949) and "The Frozen Finger" by Bora Chung (2017).

Links to the stories:
The Daemon Lover: https://literaryfictions.com/fiction-1/the-daemon-lover-by-shirley-jackson/

The Frozen Finger (with an intro by the translator, Anton Hur): https://electricliterature.com/the-frozen-finger-by-bora-chung/

Shirley Jackson (born December 14, 1916, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died August 8, 1965, North Bennington, Vermont) was an American novelist and short-story writer best known for her story “The Lottery” (1948). Jackson graduated from Syracuse University in 1940 and married the American literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. They settled in North Bennington in 1945. Life Among the Savages (1953) and Raising Demons (1957) are witty and humorous fictionalized memoirs about their life with their four children. The light comic tone of those books contrasts sharply with the dark pessimism of Jackson’s other works, whose general theme is the presence of evil and chaos just beneath the surface of ordinary everyday life. “The Lottery,” a chilling tale whose meaning has been much debated, provoked widespread public outrage when it was first published in The New Yorker in 1948. Jackson’s six finished novels, especially The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), further established her reputation as a master of gothic horror and psychological suspense. Let Me Tell You (2015) was a posthumously issued collection of stories and essays, the majority of which had never been published (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shirley-Jackson)

Bora Chung was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022. She was born in Seoul in 1976 and is a South Korean novelist, translator, and activist. She completed her undergraduate studies in English and Russian literature at Yonsei University and holds an M.A. in Russian and East European studies from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Slavic literatures from Indiana University. Her first short story, "Meori" (머리 The Head) won the 1998 Yonsei Literature Prize. She won the 3rd Digital Writers' Awards' Distinction Award in 2008 for her novella "Ho" (호 The Fox), and her short story "Ssiat" (씨앗 The Seed) won second prize at the 2014 Gwacheon Science Center SF Awards. Chung's stories are often dark and magical narratives about strong women who fight to survive in an unjust, violent world. She is the author of the novels Bulgeun kal (붉은 칼 The Red Sword), Muni yeollyeotda (문이 열렸다 The Door Opened), Jugeun jaui kkum (죽은 자의 꿈 Dreams of the Dead); the short story collections Geunyeoreul mannada (그녀를 만나다 Meeting Her), Jeoju tokki (저주토끼 Cursed Bunny), Wangui changnyeo (왕의 창녀 The King’s Prostitute), and Ssiat. Her short story collection Cursed Bunny was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. Her translations include The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Seven Churches by Miloš Urban, and The Marriage by Witold Gombrowicz. She currently serves as president of the Science Fiction Writers Union of Korea (SFWUK).