North Korea and the day to day lives of its citizens is a subject matter that isn’t touched upon often in fiction, for good reason. Adam Johnson puts it eloquently in the afterword to his book The Orphan Master’s Son – “we’ll know the true way to write a novel set in North Korea when North Korean novelists become free to tell their own stories.” That being said, with this book Johnson has created a powerful, emotional tale which feels honest, true to life, and – in keeping with the image most of us have of North Korea – painfully bleak.
