A Plagued Sea

De: Kim Bo-young, Sophie Bowman

First the flood

Next the sickness

Last the change

Visionary Korean author Kim Bo-young unleashes a Lovecraftian nightmare of infection, transformation, and abomination.

“[Kim Bo-young's] fiction is a breathtaking piece of a cinematic art.”—Bong Joon-ho, Academy Award-winning director of Parasite

While waiting for a train to Haewon, an isolated Korean seaside village, bodyguard Mu-young gets a disaster alert on her phone. TVs throughout the station report breaking news of a massive earthquake on the eastern coast. Despite the danger, Mu-young boards the train with her niece: she’d rather face the earthquake than leave the girl in her mother’s care. That choice haunts her for the rest of her life.

Three years later, Haewon Village is home to horrors. The earthquake unleashed an ancient plague that transforms its victims into fishy monsters, and the government’s lockdown has cut off any hope for help. Mu-young’s niece is dead, and all that’s left for her is to hunt villagers who break isolation. When an officious bureaucrat from Seoul arrives in the village, he stirs up even deeper trouble. Will Mu-young survive? Does she even deserve to?

©2026 Kim Bo-young and Sophie Bowman (P)2026 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Fans of eldritch horrors will find much to love in Kim Bo-young's elegantly written A Plagued Sea. At once grimace-inducing and hard to look away from, this story of regret, guilt, and transformation will stay with me a long time. Monstrous and very, very human.”—Kendare Blake, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anna Dressed in Blood

“By turns existentially bleak, delightfully gross and morbidly humorous, A Plagued Sea packs a great deal of cosmic horror in a small, effective package. For those of you who have been chasing the putrid high of Junji Ito's Gyo, this is your drug.”—Hiron Ennes, author of Leech

“Profound; modern; and unlike anything else, A Plagued Sea grapples with the current moment and exorcizes the reader. A bit of a masterpiece.”—Paul Cornell, author of the Witches of Lychford series