MENDING BODIES
HON LAI CHU
《縫身》韓麗珠著
Publication date; April 29, 2025
For readers of Ling Ma and Sayaka Murata, Hon Lai Chu’s dystopian exploration of body autonomy, relationships, and late capitalism defies and then reassembles dark realities.
In a failing city, a government program incentivizes couples to “conjoin”—surgically attach themselves to one another—promising a flourishing economy, ecological revitalization, and personal fulfillment. A student writing her dissertation on the program’s history begins to suffer from insomnia. As her world unravels and under the weight of expectations by both society and her close friends, she worries that maybe they are all right when they tell her it would be better—for the good of another person and for the good of the country—to sacrifice everything that she is and get conjoined. Mending Bodies blends body horror and political allegory to explore a world where even the motives of those you love most are shaped by larger forces.
A Paris Review and Words Without Borders Favorite Book of 2025
Winner of PEN Presents by the English PEN, 2023