The last exiles A novel

Ann Shin

Book - 2021

"Jin and Suja meet and fall in love while studying at university in Pyongyang. She is a young journalist from a prominent family, while he is from a small village of little means. Outside the school, North Korea has fallen under great political upheaval, plunged into chaos and famine. When Jin returns home to find his family starving, their food rations all but gone, he makes a rash decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, miles away, Suja has begun to feel the tenuousness of her privilege when she learns that Jin has disappeared. Risking everything, and defying her family, Suja sets out to find him, embarking on a dangerous journey that leads her into a dark criminal underbelly and tests their love and will to... survive"--

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Subjects
Genres
Romance fiction
Thrillers (Fiction)
Published
Toronto, Ontario, Canada : Park Row Books [2021]
Language
English
Main Author
Ann Shin (author)
Item Description
Subtitle from jacket.
Physical Description
330 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9780778389415
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Suja and Jin are two university students from different worlds. Suja is the daughter of a prominent editor at the Rodong Workers Newspaper, while Jin is a poor, brilliant young man from the countryside. Intrigued by Jin's distinct mannerisms and sharp wit, Suja observes him quietly until they strike up a friendship and soon fall in love, dreaming of their bright futures together in Pyongyang. During the term break, Jin returns home to visit his family and sees the chaos and injustice they endure with unwarranted police raids and severe famine. In the heat of the moment, he steals a sack of cornmeal to feed his family and faces dire consequences as a result, shattering his dreams of a successful career. After Jin is arrested and disappears, Suja must confront her upper-class privilege. She decides to take matters into her own hands and search for him herself. Risking her life, she ventures into the black market and the shady underground dwellings of criminals for the sake of love and freedom. In this moving debut, Shin depicts the incredible resilience of people and the power of love in the grim and oppressive realities of North Korea.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Shin's suspenseful debut sets an adventurous love story against the backdrop of North Korea's authoritarian government during the last years of Kim Jong-il's reign. Suja, a young North Korean girl whose father works for the government newspaper and gets her a photography internship there, has become enamored of Jin, a country boy from the impoverished town of Yangdook whom she met at Kim Il-sung University. On a school break, Jin steals cornmeal for his starving family--a treasonable offense--and is condemned to a prison camp, from which he escapes. Suja, hearing the news of his miraculous breakout at her father's newspaper office, determines to find him. Shin, a poet and filmmaker who has documented the hardships of North Korean defectors, brings veracity to the fast-paced story, revealing the harsh circumstances of life in North Korea, the bargains some make in order to escape their homeland, such as their complicity in the black market for human trafficking, and the bleak and sometimes frightening conditions facing them as they near the border with China. With taut pacing and rich prose, Shin provides a revelatory view on a system of underground brokers who aid defectors, but also fuel indentured servitude in China. The many layers make for a moving and powerful story. (Apr.)

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