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Art on Fire

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A darkly comic and compelling satire of the art world from the author of The Disaster Tourist. An Yiji’s career had been stalling for some time when a representative of the illustrious Robert Found...
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  • 14 October 2025
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A darkly comic and compelling satire of the art world from the author of The Disaster Tourist.

An Yiji’s career had been stalling for some time when a representative of the illustrious Robert Foundation offers her a spot on their all-expenses-paid artist residency in California. The residency has launched many famous artists’ careers, so she knows she can’t waste this opportunity. Still, she feels reluctant to accept, and with good reason: the Foundation’s patron is a small dog named Robert, known for both his talent as a photographer, but also his arrogance. Moreover, the offer comes with a condition: on the last day of the residency, one of An’s paintings must be incinerated, and Robert gets to select which one.

When An reaches California, she finds the state ablaze with wildfires, but at the foundation all is calm. She navigates awkward dinners with Robert, tries to find inspiration while being bombarded with sponsors who all want their business to be the subject of her art, and despairs at the prospect of her work being set on fire. Was coming to California a huge mistake?

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Price: $20.00
Pages: 256
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Imprint: Scribe US
Publication Date: 14 October 2025
Trim Size: 7.80 X 5.10 in
ISBN: 9781964992198
Format: Paperback
BISACs: FICTION / World Literature / Korea, Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary, FICTION / City Life, FICTION / Satire, FICTION / Women, Contemporary lifestyle fiction, Humorous fiction, Narrative theme: Interior life, Fiction in translation
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“The photo, the crime, the dog, and the artist. I kept asking myself: is this for real? I couldn’t stop wondering and couldn’t stop reading either. Yun Ko-eun is such a master storyteller, and this translation immaculately reflects her style. So many disparate events are happening in this novel and yet they are all convincingly probable. In the end, I am left pondering about reality. About how we all live once before we burn.”
—Bora Chung, author of Cursed Bunny

“Yun Ko-eun is back with another darkly humorous and biting satire … The creation, commodification, and celebration of art will leave an indelible mark in readers’ minds.”
—Andrienne Cruz, Booklist

Art on Fire, by turns comical and apocalyptic, is a brilliant satire of the art world, late-stage capitalism, and climate change … [An] enjoyable romp through our current plutocratic hellscape, with Yun Ko-eun skewering the sacred cows of fine art and the oligarchs who buy it.”
Driftless Area Review

“Yun Ko-eun gloriously takes on the art world, hysterically, delectably, thoroughly exposing its gatekeepers, makers, and audiences.”
—Terry Hong, Shelf Awareness

“Yun Ko-eun puts a lighted match to our present-day bonfire of the vanities, and the result is a memorably bizarre spectacle.”
—Simon Morley, author of Modern Painting: A Concise History

“Yun Ko-eun’s surgical satire on the age-old war between art and commerce has never felt this fresh and this relevant.”
—Sean Ellis, film director

“While nature usually serves as inspiration for art, in Art of Fire it also plays a role as a barrier to the public consumption and commodification of art. A lot happens in this book with a lot of themes being explored, and it’s done with humor and wit … I am continually impressed with the seamless translation of Lizzie Buehler. I would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys surrealist fiction, especially to those who want to explore more Korean translated books.”
—Helen Kim Rhee, Manse

“[An] absurdist satire that skewers modern capitalist culture and the art world.”
—Matt Witt, World Wide Work

“Higgins effortlessly captures Dusapin’s ephemeral prose … the spaces left unfilled are what give the text its otherworldly magic”
Los Angeles Review of Books

“This is a book of absence and silence … the balance between revelation and continued mystery makes it both tantalising and satisfying.”
The Guardian

“A really beautiful, quiet novel. A story of secrets and family, asking and answering the question if one can ever really can go home again.”
LitHub

“Dusapin’s storytelling and exploration of complicated female relationships evokes Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels and Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero.”
Willamette Weekly

“Poignant.”
Wall Street Journal

“Holds us in its spell … A moving tale of family strife.”
Daily Mail

“Evokes unresolved family history with subtle heat … spare, restrained … vivid and intriguing.”
—Idra Novey, New York Times

“Moody, sensual and extremely elegant.”
Jenny Mustard

“Yun Ko-eun’s novel is a good, entertaining read that proceeds by a kind of literary Zeno’s Paradox.”
—Peter Walsh, The Arts Fuse


Praise for The Disaster Tourist:

An Entropy Best Book of the Year
A Harper's Bazaar Best Book of the Year

“This tale of complicity and denial (reintroduced in a new English translation by Lizzie Buehler this summer) feels nauseatingly on point this year. Hurtling from a Seoul office building to a remote desert island in Southeast Asia, Yun’s late–capitalist satire makes the case that the identity we find through work is almost always shaped by how we have been exploited—or how we have exploited others … As in the real world, death in The Disaster Tourist becomes more optional the more powerful you are.”
—Madeline Leung Coleman, The Atlantic

“Following a spate of recent fiction considering the strange intersection of our work and leisure lives—novels such as Ling Ma’s apocalyptic satire Severance and Sayaka Murata’s oddly affecting Convenience Store WomanThe Disaster Tourist offers up another fresh and sharp story about life under late capitalism … Witty and absurd, then suspenseful, even terror–filled … This is an entertaining eco–thriller that sets out to illuminate the way climate change is inextricably bound up with the pressures of global capitalism.”
The Guardian

“Lays bare the inherent inauthenticity of the tourist experience—especially those that purport to be beneficial, even humanitarian, for the local community—and does so in a way that will make you creepily uncomfortable about all your past travel adventures.”
Los Angeles Review of Books

“This firecracker of a novel from South Korean writer Ko–eun could not be more timely, with themes around climate tourism, activism, and the #MeToo movement … This is a fast–paced thriller–esque story that skillfully addresses individual complicity in harm, and the morality of a fascination with disaster.”
Shondaland

“Yun Ko–eun presents a dystopian feminist ecothriller that takes on climate change, sexual assault, greed, and dark tourism. This is a unique, mysterious, and engrossing novel.”
Ms. Magazine

“South Korean author Yun’s spare but provocative novel offers perceptive satire laced with disconcerting imagery … Yun cleverly combines absurdity with legitimate horror and mounting dread. With its arresting, nightmarish island scenario, this work speaks volumes about the human cost of tourism in developing countries.”
Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review