Dolki Min is an artist and writer based in South Korea. Walking Practice is their debut novel.
“Elegantly written and deceptively humorous, Dolki Min’s bombastic
debut novel, Walking Practice, is a haunting examination of
survival, gender, and the complexity of the human experience. A
tremendous literary achievement.”
— Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We
Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes
“Walking Practice is an unforgettable survival story of an alien
trying to survive as a human on a hostile planet. This unique and
imaginative, weird and delicate sci-fi is a considerate exploration
of our social structures: the gender conventions, queerness, and
discrimination against the weak. A radical, darkly funny,
spine-tingling story, perfect for fans of Matt Haig’s The Humans
and Michel Faber’s Under the Skin.”
— J.M. Lee, bestselling author of Broken Summer
"Surreal, compelling, and utterly unique." — Buzzfeed
"Walking Practice explores the burden of gender expectations,
the struggle of having a flesh prison body, having to feed yourself
and wanting to be loved, and even the awkwardness of dealing with
other people on the subway. But what really makes this story sing
is the uniqueness of the narrator’s voice—both compelling and
witty....It is moving and funny, critical and crass. This one is
for anyone who is made to feel like an alien in their own body." —
Tor.com
“Through this weird, funny, deeply earnest book about a killer
alien who doesn’t fit in on Earth, Min has crafted a queer novel
about feeling out of place in one’s body and its surroundings...
The evident pleasure with which Min has drawn this character makes
for a vibrant and memorable fictional encounter with an otherness
that’s not, in the end, so different."
— The New York Times Book Review
"An alien arrives on Earth, hungry for love. The narrator of Min’s
dark satire is a shape-shifting alien who crash-landed here 15
years ago. In that time, it’s sampled all sorts of sustenance on
our planet, but only human flesh truly satisfies. So it uses dating
apps (username: Hunting4luv) to quell its cravings for sex and
sustenance....Entertaining and surprising....A slim, sui generis
allegory on romance and its discontents." — Kirkus
Reviews (starred review)
“Who would come up with a story about a shapeshifting alien who
crashlands on Earth, learns to walk by hunting humans and then is
forced to confront their sins of survival while critiquing
humankind’s marginalization of Others? Dolki Min, that’s who. And
who would read such a story? You, if you know what’s good for you."
— Ms. magazine
“There’s bleak comedy aplenty in Dolki Min’s Walking
Practice—which makes sense, given that protagonist Mumu is a
shapeshifting alien who chats with unwitting guys on the internet
and then devours them. But this isn’t simply an exercise in the
overlap of horror and humor; instead, Mumu’s observations on human
gender roles and the fraught nature of nearly every interaction in
the narrative give this book a substantial narrative weight, even
as the text and translation also factor in some playfulness.”
— Words Without Borders
"On the surface, this smart debut novel (translated from the Korean
by Victoria Caudle) is a fun story about an alien who finds men on
dating apps and eats them to stay alive. But underneath lies a
potent critique of gender norms and an exploration of what it feels
like to not fit in your body or your surroundings."
— New York Times' Books We Recommend
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