The Black Orb – written by Korean scribe Ewhan Kim and translated by Sean Lin Halbert – opens on the horrifying sight of an ominous black globe engulfing people whole in downtown Seoul.
The witness to this is Jeong-su, an adrift thirtysomething who soon finds himself traversing the country to reunite with his parents, all while watching as the sinister sphere continues on its path of destruction.
The allegorical work of Kim’s work is plain – the orb itself, a metaphor for hopelessness and doom encroaching on our world even gets the maudlin moniker of ‘Orb of Despair’ – and despite the unrelenting grimness of the novel, it’s a dazzlingly dark literary page-turner, full of characters trying their best to survive an apocalypse built entirely on the back of misery and paranoia.
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Razor-sharp in its wit, The Black Orb is one of the darkest releases for summer 2024 that reflects on the human tendency to catastrophise and what that can mean in the modern world where human connection can be frayed at best and doom and gloom can consume – both literally and figuratively – all in its path.
The Black Orb is out on 1st August from Serpent’s Tail.
