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Bae Suah (author), Deborah Smith (translator), Untold Night and Day, Jonathan Cape, 2020. 155 pgs.

It has been some time since I last encountered a book that made me exclaim, without hesitation, “wow.” One that drew me so completely into its pages and refused to let me go. Yet Untold Night and Day did precisely that.

I read it in two days. Admittedly, it is brief, but I would not recommend reading it hastily—it is not that kind of book. One must attend closely to the details, and the prose is so intense that, from time to time, it compels you to pause and step outside its truly hallucinatory, dreamlike atmosphere. That is, indeed, the most fitting way to describe it. Not because of what happens—there are no grotesque incidents or sensational turns of plot—but because of the style. The real becomes dream, the present slips into the past, the dream yields to wakefulness, and so forth. All unfolds with a rhythm akin to a stage monologue. That was the impression that accompanied me throughout: I felt myself in a theatre, everything happening before me with one or two actors, or else in a film where two protagonists exchange ideas, speaking of seemingly trivial things…

Untold Night and Day is not a novel in which much “happens”—it is not for those in search of action. It is, rather, a novel of atmosphere and style, one that captivates precisely because of this. It is brief yet profound, drawing readers into a dreamlike meditation on identity, reality, and the passage of time. It is a hauntingly introspective work that probes the complexities of modern existence and human consciousness.

Renowned for her experimental and often fragmented style, Bae Suah presents here a narrative that is less concerned with conventional plot than with the interior landscapes of her characters. At its surface, the story follows a young woman navigating life in contemporary South Korea; yet it transcends its setting to explore universal themes of alienation, desire, and the search for meaning. Spanning a single day and night in the oppressive summer heat of Seoul, the narrative centres on Ayami, a 27-year-old former actress employed at an audio theatre for the blind, as she faces the closure of her workplace and encounters a series of enigmatic figures.

As mentioned, the novel’s structure is non-linear, dissolving the boundaries between reality and illusion. Through overlapping perspectives and recurring motifs, Bae Suah composes a narrative that resists conventional storytelling, compelling readers to question perception and the fluidity of identity. The prose is rich and evocative, evoking the suffocating atmosphere of a city gripped by a relentless heatwave.

At first, the story seems to proceed with a certain linearity, yet this impression is misleading. Almost imperceptibly, the reader is drawn into a succession of shifting planes and parallel worlds, of recurring images that surface fleetingly only to serve as signposts—a reminder that one is not lost, but exactly where one ought to be, provided one surrenders to the narrative’s current.

Bae Suah’s use of repetition and symbolic imagery heightens the novel’s surreal resonance. Perhaps the most striking feature of the book, however, is its language. Her prose is at once sparse and poetic, imbued with an almost hypnotic rhythm that mirrors the ebb and flow of thought itself. Sentences unfold in unexpected ways, reflecting the fractured, often surreal nature of memory and perception. This style may unsettle readers accustomed to linear narrative, but it creates an experience of extraordinary immersion, compelling one to inhabit the narrator’s consciousness fully.

At its heart, Untold Night and Day is a meditation on the elusive nature of reality and the intricacies of human connection. Its abstract form may deter some, but for those willing to engage with its demands, it offers a work of profound subtlety and depth.

The novel is laden with symbols, and I would identify two central themes: identity—how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves—and loneliness, with all that follows from these. Both are explored against the backdrop of Seoul, a vast machine of a city that pushes individuals in disparate directions, compels them into prescribed roles, and threatens to standardise individuality. The city itself becomes a character—marginal yet omnipresent, palpable, and inescapable.

Ultimately, Bae Suah’s Untold Night and Day is a compelling and thought-provoking exploration of contemporary consciousness, written with a delicate precision that lingers long after the final page. It is a novel that rewards patience and attentiveness, offering a quiet yet enduring resonance for readers attuned to the subtleties of thought, perception, and emotion.

How to cite: Tataran, Dorina. “Between Dream and Wakefulness: Reading Bae Suah’s Untold Night and Day.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 25 Aug. 2025, chajournal.blog/2025/08/25/night-day.

Dorina Tataran is from Bucharest, Romania. After being a journalist for several years, she has returned to her first love: books. She has been translating books from English into Romanian for over ten years now and from Asian literature she translated Weina Dal Randel’s The Empress of Bright Moon. She is also one of the editors of the online cultural magazine Semnebune.ro. She has published a few short stories in a local magazine and some excerpts from a novel-in-progress in a few others. She is passionate about Asian culture in general, and she is currently learning Korean and discovering more about South Korean culture, especially its literature and films. Dorina loves jazz, coffee and she thinks there is nothing more exciting than being a spectator of this ever-changing world, especially through its stories. [All contributions by Dorina Tataran.]

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