Toward Eternity; A Novel

"A love story that spans millennia, different life-forms, and various forms of immortality, Toward Eternity explores Victorian poetry as an instrument of empire, underscores nature’s resilience in the face of genocide, and shapes prose into a unique new language... The novel recognizes both the construction and destruction of bridges." — The New York Times

A Parade, LitHub, and Chicago Review of Books Best New Book. An AudioFile Earphones Award Winner.

In this brilliant, haunting speculative novel, drawing comparisons to Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun and Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility, a #1 New York Times bestselling translator offers an exploration into the rapidly evolving relationship between technology and biology, asking: What does it mean to be human in a world where technology is racing ahead of biology?

Set in the near future, a revolutionary nanotherapy is swiftly eliminating cancer by replacing the body’s cells with nanites—robotic or android cells that not only cure disease but also render humans virtually immortal.

Yonghun, a literary researcher, teaches an AI to comprehend poetry, creating a sentient machine he names Panit, meaning Beloved, in tribute to his husband. But when Yonghun—who himself undergoes the nanotherapy—mysteriously disappears, only to reappear with unsettling suddenness, it raises troubling questions. What happened to him, and is he truly the same person?

Dr. Beeko, the scientist behind the nanotherapy technology, learns of Panit and transfers its consciousness into an android body, granting it freedom and life. As Yonghun, Panit, and others who’ve undergone the therapy begin to thrive and replicate, their evolution leads them to a fateful choice with profound existential consequences.

Toward Eternity delves into the essence of intelligence, the unforeseen consequences of progress, the concept of personhood, and what we truly have to fear from technology and the future. It is a breathtaking, thought-provoking novel that challenges our understanding of humanity—and the endurance of love, even at the brink of its end.