The Orphan Master's Son

North Korea, early 21st century. In a country ruled by the cult of Kim Jong Il, poverty, corruption, and the brutality of the authorities toward their own people—deprived of even the most basic human rights—flourish. Public executions, concentration camps and prison mines, slavery, kidnappings of Japanese and South Koreans, nonstop propaganda, and a ban on everything foreign—this is the reality of the lives of people whom the state machine turns into zombies.

The main character of the novel—a boy from an orphanage—at age 14 becomes a soldier, trained to fight in dark tunnels dug through the demilitarized zone, and a few years later becomes a ruthless human kidnapper. As a reward for his “successes,” he is sent as a radio operator onto a fishing vessel that, in reality, spies on foreign ships. Later, after a brutal “test,” he ends up in America as an interpreter for a diplomatic delegation—where, by sheer chance, he is taken for a minister of prison mines. His gripping story of incredible, bordering on absurd adventures is full of tragedy and self-sacrificing love, blind obedience to the ideology of Juche, and a sense of duty to his loved ones. The author intentionally piles on the colors—making this novel akin to a “bomb that exploded in clear skies” within civilized society.

The book is intended for a wide readership.

Adam Johnson teaches writing at Stanford University. His work has been published in Esquire, The Paris Review, Harper’s, Tin House, Granta and Playboy, as well as in The Best American Short Stories. Other works include Emporium, a collection of novellas, and the novel Parasites Like Us. He lives in San Francisco.

The book received the Pulitzer Prize in 2013.