The last exiles A novel

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.

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.)