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Brookline Booksmith's Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation. For more information, contact the series director Pierce at [email protected].Join the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith for an in-store event with author and acclaimed translator Anton Hur to discuss and celebrate the release of his novel Toward Eternity. He will be in conversation with writer Michelle Min Sterling.
Negotiating the terrain of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun and Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility, a brilliant, haunting speculative novel from a #1 New York Times bestselling translator that sets out to answer the question: What does it mean to be human in a world where technology is quickly catching up to biology?
In a near-future world, a new technological therapy is quickly eradicating cancer. The body’s cells are entirely replaced with nanites—robot or android cells which not only cure those afflicted but leaves them virtually immortal.
Literary researcher Yonghun teaches an AI how to understand poetry and creates a living, thinking machine he names Panit, meaning Beloved, in honor of his husband. When Yonghun—himself a recipient of nanotherapy—mysteriously vanishes into thin air and then just as suddenly reappears, the event raises disturbing questions. What happened to Yonghun, and though he’s returned, is he really himself anymore?
When Dr. Beeko, the scientist who holds the patent to the nanotherapy technology, learns of Panit, he transfers its consciousness from the machine into an android body, giving it freedom and life. As Yonghun, Panit, and other nano humans thrive—and begin to replicate—their development will lead them to a crossroads and a choice with existential consequences.
Exploring the nature of intelligence and the unexpected consequences of progress, the meaning of personhood and life, and what we really have to fear from technology and the future, Toward Eternity is a gorgeous, thought-provoking novel that challenges the notion of what makes us human—and how love survives even the end of that humanity.
Anton Hur was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and was subsequently raised in six different countries on four different continents, including British Hong Kong, Ethiopia, the United States, and Thailand, but spent most of his time in Korea. He has worked as an interpreter and translator for more than two decades, and in 2022, was double-longlisted and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the first translator of color to do so. In 2023, his translation of Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny was shortlisted for the National Book Awards. He divides his time between Seoul and the science fiction-y island of Songdo with his husband.
Moderator Michelle Min Sterling is the New York Times bestselling author of Camp Zero. Born and raised in British Columbia, Canada, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and teaches creative writing and literature at Berklee College of Music. Her writing has been translated into ten languages.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
279 Harvard Street, 02446, 287 Harvard St, Brookline, MA 02446-2908, United States,Brookline, Massachusetts
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