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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 28/09/2026

Just showing you the exact location (in the gap at the top) where my copy of this book will live

Four coffee table books stacked inside a coffee table

Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 28/09/2026

Somewhat reductively: most human beings are human bodies that learn how to have minds, while Panit is a mind that learns how to have a human body (how words "feel"). Best illustrated in this excerpt. The Japanese paperback-format Nomad edition is on sale now: www.harpercollins.com/products/tow...

How could humans stand how madly beautiful the world was?
I was briefly overcome.
When the effect began to subside to manageable levels, I realized that I was also feeling textures. I felt the silky cotton sheets against my skin, the breath inside me, my heart beating in my chest.
My breath. My heart. My beating pulse.
I spent a long moment in stillness simply feeling the air being drawn in and out of my lungs, feeling my beating heart, marveling at my own pulse. I slowly moved my eyes from the movement of the waves to the clouds, and to the folds of shadow in the thick white comforter.
Every millimeter of movement was excruciatingly painful, just as Dr. Beeko had feared, but that pain, too, was receding as the seconds passed and my consciousness eased into the reaches of my physical, nanite brain. It felt as if my mind was stretching into a tight space and expanding it, like a hand into a rubber glove. I found myself having muscle memories that were clearly not mine, ideas of how to move my body.
When I finally felt confident enough, I slowly brought my
right hand before my face. It was a pale hand.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine
Shakespeare. The superstitious play, not to be referred to by name. It was not a nineteenth-century work, in other words not

my area of expertise, but the Bard had been quoted often enough back then to be considered essential text, much like the King James Bible. The quote came to me not as readily as it had before, but when it did, it had a force and clarity that knocked the breath out of me. My now literal breath.
This was where my new body pushed me onto a completely
unexpected sensibility, a new plane of being.
I suddenly realized that I understood the words like I'd never understood them before. The multitudinous seas incarnadine.
Words that were not simply bits of cross-referential information but each a thing of living, breathing, tactile emotion. I felt these words against my skin as if they were physical objects, or as if they were light passing through the prism of my body and shattering into the spectrum. Had I ever truly understood any word before, ever? How could I have claimed to have made a study of poetry or that this study had made me human when I had never understood what it meant to feel words?
Twenty minutes passed as my thoughts and new emotions coalesced into a manageable equilibrium. This new body was like a drug. It enhanced some kinds of thought and dulled others. I could not do calculations like I used to, but I kept feeling new, subtle textures to my thoughts that shifted my thinking into strange directions and associations. Later on, I recognized these textures as emotions. It was the longest twenty minutes I had ever lived, half a lifetime in 1,200 seconds.
I was soon feeling strong enough to venture out of the bed. I was still unsure of my body and ended up sliding out between the sheets and onto the floor. I had never had to stand up before.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 21/09/2026

Same cover, same font, same illustrations! The cover is matte and not glossy, and the paper quality is finer, but it’s like being 8 y/o again!

Reissued Choose Your Own Adventure, The Mystery of Chimney Rock, cover

Inside of The Mystery of Chimney Rock, illustration of black cat

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 16/09/2026

Health experts say we should get up from our desks for five minutes every half hour and indeed, at some point, my body activates my inner Caroline Bingley who bitchily suggests we take a turn about the room.

Anna Chancellor dressed in orange Regency dress as Caroline Bingley in the BBC Pride and Prejudice.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 13/09/2026

Please give us Star City season 2, Apple TV+ 🥹🙏🏼

Still from Star City of a closeup of the face of a female cosmonaut

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 06/09/2026

This poem by Ocean Vuong makes this point:

OLD GLORY
Knock 'em dead, big guy. Go in there guns blazing, buddy. You crushed at the show. No, it was a blowout. No, a massacre. Total overkill. We tore them a new one. My son's a beast. A lady
-killer. Straight shooter, he knocked her up. A bombshell blonde. You'll blow them away. Let's bag the broad. Let's spit-roast the faggot. Let's fuck his brains out.
That girl's a grenade. It was like Nam down there. I'd still slam it though. I'd smash it good. I'm cracking up. It's hilarious. You truly murdered. You had me dying over here.
Bro, for real though, I'm dead.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 20/08/2026

THANK YOU EDINBURGH!!! YOU’RE ONE OF MY FAVORITE PLACES!!!

Anton standing in front of a banner that says edinburgh international book festival with the futures institute in the background

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 17/08/2026

I'm flying out to Scotland tonight—see you in Edinburgh! Lee Seong-bok THAT SUMMER'S END event: www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/anton... Literary translation event: www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/polly...

Polly Barton, Daniel Hahn & Anton Hur: In Other Words
THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH EVENT
Wed 19 Aug 2026 | 12:15 - 13:15
• Courtyard Theatre
Accessibility
Captioned

Anton Hur & Lee Seong-bok: That Summer's End
Thu 20 Aug 2026 | 13:30 - 14:30
• Venue NW
Accessibility
Captioned

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 11/08/2026

오션 브엉 시집 <Time Is a Mother> 한역 송고!

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 06/08/2026

제 친구이자 번역계의 전설인 데미언 설스의 책이 홍한별 번역가님의 솜씨로 유유출판사에서 나왔어요! 번역에 대해 관심있는 모든 분 들께 추천합니다 ✨ uupress.notion.site/3b117649c404...

번역의 철학의 표지와 The Philosophy of Translation 표지

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 05/08/2026

OUT NOW: That Summer's End by Lee Seong-bok, author of international poetry bestseller Indeterminate Inflorescence, in my translation from Knopf 💙 Special thanks to Namjoon of BTS and to Army for enabling us in bringing this book into translation! 🙇🏻‍♂️✨ #그여름의끝 www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/776178...

A copy of That Summer's End stacked on top of eight other copies.

A copy of That Summer's End standing in front of a stack of eight other copies.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 01/08/2026

Giverny, where Monet settled after seeing it from outside of a train window. This is from twelve years ago and I vowed to return to do a writing retreat someday. 2027 may be the time.

A pond with dark water and lily pads that catch the light, with strands of willows draping over the water.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 30/07/2026

*sigh* This is not how translation works in the real world, I do not MAKE WORDS UP because I FEEL like it as the translator, the AUTHOR coined a neologism and I, in turn, came up with a TRANSLATION for it, I don’t just PUT THINGS INTO A BOOK THAT AREN’T THERE you guys locusmag.com/review/the-h...

Translator Anton Hur does a good job of evoking these types of media while also preserving the distinctiveness of Lee's setting and characters. On one point, however, he and I must part ways. He coins the neologism
"nearm" to describe the Nhaga's telepathic communication, and substitutes it for verbs like talk, speak, or say. This is presumably in keeping with Lee's choices in original text, but the result - "Ryun, nearm me, what should | do?" - is rather distracting.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 24/07/2026

www.instagram.com/reel/DZ2x8ae...

Instagram screenshot of “You Never Take Me to Bangladesh” sung in chant

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 20/07/2026

Preorders open for THAT SUMMER’S END by Lee Seong-bok! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/776178...

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 17/07/2026

The funniest moment at West Cork Litfest in Ireland was when I told Andrew Miller that as of two weeks ago, I was his Korean translator for The Land in Winter. “You’ve met my Korean translator?” “No, I *am* your Korean translator.” We took a selfie for his Korean publisher lol

Anton and Andrew wearing oddly coordinated blue button-down shirts at the West Cork Litfest green room

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 13/07/2026

Beautiful Bantry, Ireland, and the souvenir I picked up that wouldn’t fit in my bag so I carried through the streets like a caption for my face

Old Bantry House and its green gardens and deep blue cloudless sky

Anton holding a license plate that says “feckin eejit” and the Irish flag

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 12/07/2026

“Too much happiness hurts your eyes. We can sustain grief and sadness for considerably longer than joy, oddly enough.”

Cover of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s Twelve Thousand Days

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 05/07/2026

Celebrating 4th of July at the European Union Parliament because American independence is looking like a bad idea, to use what white people say about brown people’s independence

Hemicycle plenary chamber of the EU parliament

Standing with the EU flags and EU flag at the chamber

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 30/06/2026

Landed in Germany. Geeking out over my first ICE train ride! It’s like riding the Orient Express. It’s like millennial retro futurism

Anton post-12 hour flight sitting and smiling in ICE train

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 17/06/2026

Amazing things are happening at Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 14/06/2026

Damion Searls and me signing books, fun!

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 13/06/2026

My view from an adirondack —Bread Loaf, Vermont

Vermont blue sky green hill and field and white house, bucolic vibe

Anton sitting on adirondack holding up copy of Analog Days by Damion Searls

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 13/06/2026

In Noo Yawk I do not walk, I schlep

Anton wearing a guest sticker for HarperCollins HQ

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 28/05/2026

Fun fact! I blurbed this book:

"A beguiling tale of Otherness that is not only a translation from another language but another planet, a story told so well that every familiar word feels as new as an alien horizon.”
- Anton Hur, author of Toward Eternity

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 24/05/2026

I had lunch at my parents’ house and was using chopsticks just fine when my dad handed me a fork that I used as a child in Sweden 😂😂😂 I am in my mid-forties and am so motor-coordinated I have a black belt in kendo, but my parents will always see me as a baby 🥹 I did use it for the cake later tbf

Anton holding up child’s fork that doesn’t even fit in his hand

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 23/05/2026

The Heart of the Nhaga (The Bird That Drinks Tears Book 1) written by Lee Young-do and translated by me is out in June! Here’s my unboxing video~*

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 22/05/2026

None of these rebuttals from Olga Tokarczuk address the fact that Al is destroying our environment, making people less critical and more compliant, and ALSO THE FACT THAT IT'S PLAGIARIZING WRITERS lithub.com/olga-tokarcz...

Olga Tokarczuk says:

I state briefly and firmly:
1. I make use of artificial intelligence on the same
principles as most people in the world - I treat it as a tool that
allows faster documenting and checking of facts. Whenever I use this tool I additionally verify the information. Just as I have done for several decades by reading books and by exploring libraries and archives.
2. None of my texts, including the novel that will appear in Polish this fall, has been written with the help of artificial intelligence - except for using it as a tool for faster preliminary research.
3. I am sometimes inspired by dreams, but before this sentence too is cornered and torn to
pieces by the experts, I hasten to report that they are my own dreams.
Olga Tokarczuk, May 19, 2006

Anton rebuts:

none of these rebuttals address the fact that Al is destroying our environment, making people less critical and more compliant, and ALSO THE FACT THAT IT'S
PLAGIARIZING
WRITERS

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 20/05/2026

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

"Allowing a transgender adolescent with gender dysphoria to experience their endogenous puberty when puberty blockers are medically indicated according to the Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline is highly likely to result in irreversible physical changes that create enormous short- and long-term distress and gender dysphoria," Folsom wrote. "Thus, there was substantial evidence that S.B. 63 not only fails to protect minors, but also endangers them, by prohibiting the use of GnRH agonists when medically indicated."

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 17/05/2026

“undated” www.bbc.com/news/article...

A Reddit forum dedicated to discussions about the LIRR has been undated with comments and questions from commuters anxious about how they will get to work or school.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 17/05/2026

I have that bookmark in my library too! I framed mine 😆

Octavia Butler bookmark framed in Anton’s library. A quote from Butler printed on it that says, All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 13/05/2026

Cornelius Reiber's translation of my novel TOWARD ETERNITY was nominated for a 2026 Kurd Laßwitz Preis in the category of "Best Translated Non-German SF Work Debut." Go us! www.kurd-lasswitz-preis.de/2026/KLP_202...

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 10/05/2026

On reading ironically and pronouncing “Coetzee” properly.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 05/05/2026

Mine is Possession (2002) starring Gwyneth Paltrow. I love the book so much that the movie would only be a disappointment, but I caught it again on cable years later and really liked it. Many of the best lines are the ones that are not in the book.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart stand before a tombstone from the movie Possession

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 01/05/2026

You know, when an account named "Crackhead Barney & Friends" single-handedly takes down a whole Kennedy-dynastic frontrunner's campaign with one Instagram Reel, I see a hopeful glimmer of the country America believes itself to be www.instagram.com/reel/DXr3ILS...

Jack Schlossberg refusing to say "free Palestine" on camera

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 29/04/2026

Happy pub day to Kim Choyeop’s IF WE CANNOT GO AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT, Korea’s first international hard SF bestseller, now finally available in English! US: www.simonandschuster.com/books/If-We-... UK: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 21/04/2026

Well that sounds familiar

In a near-future world, a new technological therapy is quickly eradicating cancer. The body's cells are entirely replaced with nanites-robot or android cells which not only cure those afflicted but leaves them virtually immortal.
Literary researcher Yonghun teaches an Al how to understand poetry and creates a living, thinking machine he names Panit, meaning Beloved, in honor of his husband. When Yonghun-himself a recipient of nanotherapy-mysteriously vanishes into thin air and then just as suddenly reappears, the event raises disturbing questions. What happened to Yonghun, and though he's returned, is he really himself anymore?

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 20/04/2026

I don’t get writer’s block. Not since reading a magical book that gave me this advice:

I2.
To write poetry is to dig a waterway for words. Poetry allows words to flow through you. The poet must not force the flow of words but rather watch and wait.
I3.
To write poetry is to create a way for words to pass. The poet must not drag words through you but rather watch them flow through you.
I4.
Literature isn't made by us. Literature is made by language.
There is no path that language cannot enter. Language can't even be talked about without language.

19.
You must pluck the poem from yourself as quickly as possible. If you're thinking about the poem, it's already too late. Make sure you expel the words faster than you can think about them. Don't let your brain interfere. The stronger the poem's rhythm, the weaker its "meaning." A good sign that your brain is going faster than your body.
20.
The brain is deliberate and social, but the hand is closer to desire and the unconscious. A poem is like a finger that breaks out of your head. Or the slit in a Chinese qipao dress: opens when you walk, closes when you stop.
21.
Words dragged by force from the brain are stiff and devoid of feeling. Instead, your words should be a beat ahead of your brain. Like a child rolling a steel hoop, the words will come alive only if they roll on ahead of the brain.

22.
You've seen soccer players pass the ball to each other. If they're blocked, they pass, and receive the ball again once they're past the block. Just like this, you've got to let go of the language before thinking about what to do next. If you keep the ball in your possession, the reader will only steal it from you.
23.
The theme comes after the words. Don't write on a theme, write with words. It's difficult to build on meaning. Meaning arrives only after sound does.

25.
Poems written with intent is violence against poetry. You need to rescue language from the brain and make it dance in your body instead. Then both you and language will be happy.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 18/04/2026

IF WE CANNOT GO AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT by Kim Choyeop, an international SF bestseller, is finally out in my English translation on April 26! Reprints have already been issued by popular demand! Here is what it’s about! US: www.simonandschuster.com/books/If-We-... UK: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 17/04/2026

How to Get a Great Idea for a Novel feat. my novel TOWARD ETERNITY, published by HarperCollins everywhere ✨🪐 US: www.harpercollins.com/products/tow... UK: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/towa...

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 14/04/2026

HOLY FCUK I HAVE THREE NOMINATIONS

Translated Novel
• On the Calculation of Volume III, Solvej Balle, tr. Sophia Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russell (New Directions; Faber & Faber) (SF]
• The Unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica, tr. Sarah Moses (Scribner; Pushkin UK) [H]
• The Midnight Shift, Cheon Seon-Ran, tr. Gene Png (Bloomsbury UK; Bloomsbury US) [H]
• Red Sword, Bora Chung, tr. Anton Hur (Honford Star) [SF]
• The Midnight Timetable, Bora Chung, tr.
Anton Hur (Algonquin) [H]
• Ice, Jacek Dukaj, tr. Ursula Phillips (Head of Zeus) [SF]
• Blood for the Undying Throne, Sung-il Kim, tr.
Anton Hur (Tor) [F]

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 12/04/2026

“Most people expect a young person’s first book to be about their own life.” I’m confused, the novel is literally based on his family history?? That IS a book about your own life

In the New York Times: Since the fall, the German news media has seemed obsessed with the question of how a teen could write a sweeping, traditional historical novel. "Most people expect a young person's first book to be about their own life," Biedermann said, sipping an herbal tea in a cafe in central Zurich. "But even if you discount my age, people found it interesting that the book is stylistically, linguistically old-fashioned."

The author heard stories about the family as a child mostly from his grandmother, who lived in a modest apartment in suburban Zurich filled with stately family heirlooms, including old furniture, cutlery and portraits. "It just didn't fit the place where she lived," he said. "It was like a time capsule."
He recalled his grandmother telling him about her escape from Hungary after Soviet forces crushed the country's revolution in 1956. She told him that she had left the country on foot, at one point running across a frozen river at night, to reach Croatia and eventually Switzerland.

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 10/04/2026

Is he going to say to Iran, "You never said thank you!"

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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 03/04/2026

This is a bullet train station in Wuhan, China:

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