The Midnight Timetable

The Midnight Timetable Synopsis

*Shortlisted for the 2026 URSULA K. LE GUIN PRIZE FOR FICTION*

Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny and deeply political, The Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time's greatest imaginations.

'Truly nightmarish.' Andrew Michael Hurley
'I inhaled Bora Chung's book of ghost stories and then slept with the light on!' Avni Doshi
'Uniquely brilliant and exquisitely demented' Gerardo Sámano Córdova

In a labyrinthine research facility, where those who open the wrong door might find it's disappeared behind them or that the echoing footsteps they're running from are their own, an unnamed protagonist begins their night shift under the watchful eye of the building's enigmatic senior guard.

Each evening, as the fluorescent lights flicker and the silence grows heavier, the guard shares another tale of cursed objects and lives unspooled by vengeance, sorrow or revelation. But these are not mere ghost stories. They're warnings. Lessons. Or, perhaps, confessions . . .

As the nights stretch on and reality frays, our protagonist starts to suspect that the building itself is alive with malevolent intent and that the objects they guard aren't just cursed. They're waiting. Watching.

'Electrifying. A feast of a book. Strange, hypnotic and audacious.' Irenosen Okojie
'A fascinating novel of shifting realities centred by a steady, humane heart. Bora Chung is a master of concocting dreamscapes that linger.' Marie-Helene Bertino
'These ghost stories . . . mist off the page and leave the real world hazy and askew.' Pemi Aguda