Literary Fiction · DarkA boy from a North Korean orphanage is pulled into the state's machinery
The Orphan Master's Son
by Adam Johnson
The son of an orphanage master in North Korea rises through the state's ranks
Pak Jun Do grows up as the son of the man who runs an orphanage work camp in North Korea. He rises through the state's ranks and becomes a kidnapper for the state. Later he risks everything to save Sun Moon, an actress he loves. A novel that mixes thriller, coming-of-age story and love story, and shows North Korea's hunger, corruption and cruelty alongside moments of camaraderie and beauty.
More about this book
Who
Pak Jun Do, raised in a state orphanage in North Korea. He is a leader among the other children while deferring to his father, the orphanage master. At fourteen the children are conscripted into military service, where orphans are treated as expendable and are often sent to fight in underground tunnels.
World
North Korea in the era of Kim Jong-il.
What makes it different
The book uses three voices: a third-person account of Jun Do, a propaganda version of a state hero's life broadcast over loudspeakers, and a first-person account by an interrogator writing that hero's biography. Johnson says it began as a short story, "The Best North Korean Short Story of 2005," and he drew on the state system and on the real history of North Korea abducting Japanese citizens.
Feel
Dark humor mixed with political themes: propaganda, identity and state power. It won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.