The Melancholy of Untold History

"Yes, and it shows, in the best way. The novel is deeply concerned with the myth-making aims of a society’s history, in ways that are woven into both plot and form. Kang teaches a course called Historical Myth, looking at exactly these themes, and this is a really intelligent novel – as well as being a lot of fun. We follow three separate layers: a myth-like tale of gods, the life of a storyteller from the ancient past, and the life of a contemporary historian. The relationship between the three becomes clear as the novel goes on, but at first you are just enjoying each layer in its own right and waiting to find out why you’re being told all three. There’s something wonderfully assured about Kang’s style which makes you very happy to wait, confident that something is being unfurled for you. Yes. In our interview with him, Kang described the fictional version of East Asia he already has in his imagination, where instead of modern-day China, a confederation of states has evolved. The mythic layer draws on classic Chinese fantasy novels for its tone and world. It’s a wonderful blend of beautiful and irreverent. Locus magazine described this book as “inventive and intellectually provocative”, and that’s a good summary. I’ve covered why it might be ‘intellectually provocative’, but it really is inventive too – with a whole colourful cast of gods, a mischievous sky-baby, and a satisfying and original millennia-spanning mystery. December 9, 2025. Updated: March 27, 2026 Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected] Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you've enjoyed this interview, please support us by donating a small amount ."

"We ourselves right now are in a period of deep crisis, with false views of history happening all over the place. That’s been around since ancient times, but because of the internet, the spread of false stories about the past has really accelerated. That’s something I talk about with my students all the time. I teach a course called Historical Myth, all about wrong things people believe about the past. So absolutely, that is of great concern to me – the struggle of historians to find out what truth is, at a time when that has become a dangerous thing. More trivially, I’ll tell you a funny story… You know The Onion, the satirical news site? The single funniest article I’ve ever read on The Onion is one where historians have a press conference, and they tearfully admit that they made up Ancient Greece . And I laughed so hard. But then I thought about it – how could one actually do that? What would it take for a very strong and powerful man to just invent an entire era? What kind of resources would be needed? I came to the realization they would need to commit a massacre, because so many people would have to be involved in the task, and all those people would need to die. And once I realised that, I knew I had a story. The book is perhaps even more inspired by Chinese pre-modern fictional adaptations of myths. For reasons I won’t get into, I have an entire fictional East Asia worked out in my mind. The country that the historian comes from is an alternate version of China, which isn’t one country, but is instead a bunch of democratic countries that are tied together EU-style. So it’s a much more benevolent path that the country took. And Korea is there, but it’s under the name of Pristine Morning, which is what Joseon (the last royal dynasty of Korea) actually means. It was kind of implausible to think about a Korean king doing the things I needed for my story, because of the resources involved – but a Chinese emperor could. So in preparation for writing this novel, I spent a lot of time gulping up all the traditional Chinese novels that could be categorized as classic fantasy novels. The most famous one is Journey To The West , which is this massive novel about a monkey with superpowers – and if you read that, you’ll see where I got the idea for the naked sky baby. And even though that story is a large, noble enterprise, trying to bring back Buddhist texts from the west, there are also very irreverent fart jokes in there. I love that. I love the epic, wild, imaginative stories, along with all the folk tales. And there are other great classic Chinese novels in there too, like Outlaws of the Marsh."