Claire Kohda

The attraction of repulsion: The Disaster Tourist, by Yun-Ko Eun, reviewed

The ghoulish desire to visit scenes of catastrophe is explored in this powerful novel from South Korea

Disaster tourism at Chernobyl. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 04 July 2020

Disaster tourism allows people to explore places in the aftermath of natural and man-made disasters. Sites of massacres and concentration camps can be visited; tours operate around Chernobyl, Centralia — the city in America that is perpetually on fire — Aleppo and Fukushima. Tourists can ‘experience’ what it is like to live in a war zone, in extreme poverty or a place emptied by nuclear fallout, and then return to the safety of their homes.

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