Set in San Francisco, A Contrived World recounts the author’s visit to the mythic Californian city. While the novel is based in this real experi- ence, the narrator’s imaginative reflections cause the narrative to balloon outward into the realms of fiction and fantasy. Each chance encounter provides an opportunity to unfurl a fictional world that simultaneously complements and compromises the real world. In this mirthful anti-novel, the ambiguous fusion of observation and invention disrupts the con- ventions of personal memoir and travel writing, resulting in a chronicle that sets fiction against experience.
--
Set in San Francisco, A Contrived World recounts the author’s visit to the mythic Californian city. While the novel is based in this real experience, the narrator’s imaginative reflections cause the narrative to balloon outward into the realms of fiction and fantasy. Each chance encounter provides an opportunity to unfurl a fictional world that simultaneously complements and compromises the real world. In this mirthful anti-novel, the ambiguous fusion of observation and invention disrupts the conventions of personal memoir and travel writing, resulting in a chronicle that sets fiction against experience.
"For those whose literary tastes incline toward an appreciation of such darker pleasures..." - Quarterly Conversation
Novelist, short-story writer, translator, playwright, and teacher, Jung Young-moon was born in Hamyang, South Korea, in 1965. He graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in psychology. He made his literary debut in 1996 with the novel A Man Who Barely Exists. He has also translated more than forty English books into Korean.