Anton Hur

Anton Hur (, or ; Hur was also the only translator that year to have been longlisted for two translations. Hur was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants for his translation of Cursed Bunny. Hur was awarded a PEN Translates grant to translate The Underground Village by Kang Kyeong-ae.

Biography

Hur, a Korean citizen, was born in Stockholm on 7 April 1981. His father worked for KOTRA, a state-funded trade and investment promotion organization of the South Korean government, and he was raised in various countries including Hong Kong, Ethiopia, and Thailand before settling in Korea. As his family did not initially support him studying literature, he studied law and psychology at Korea University and French at Korea National Open University before pursuing a master's degree in English literature at Seoul National University. He began working as a translator full-time in 2018, beginning with Kyung-Sook Shin's The Court Dancer.

In addition to translating Korean literature into English, Hur is also the translator of the forthcoming Korean edition of Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds. His writing has been published in outlets such as Astra Magazine, Words Without Borders, Lithub, Asymptote, and many others. In 2022, he was a recipient of the 13th Hong Jin-Ki Creator Award, created in honour of the founder of the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo, which honours "Koreans who made crucial contributions to society, science and technology, as well as culture and arts".

Hur's first novel, Toward Eternity, was published by HarperVia in 2024. The book was featured on "Five of the best science fiction books of 2024" list by The Guardian.

In 2025, Hur was on the judging panel for the International Booker Prize. His translation of Seolyeon Park's Capitalists Must Starve released in October 2025.

The novels Red Sword and Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, translated by Hur, were both finalists for the 2026 Locus Award for Best Translated Novel. The novel Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-il Kim, translated by Hur, was also a finalist for the award.

Personal life Hur is openly queer and has written about sexuality, the history of diverse sexuality in Korean literature beginning with Yi Gwangsu's 1909 short story Is It Love, and misery as an enduring theme in queer Korean literature. He and his husband divide their time between Seoul and Songdo in Incheon.

Selected translations

Chung, Bora (2024), Your Utopia, Algonquin Books, Park Seolyeon (2025), Capitalists Must Starve, Tilted Axis Press, Chung, Bora (2025), Midnight Timetable, Algonquin Books,

Works