Synopses & Reviews
“‘Can a nation disappear forever?’ . . . [In] a tale of collective loss, political revolution and the individual quest for self-determination . . . Kim brings us the souls caught up on the ground of this larger drama." —
Minneapolis Star Tribune In 1904, facing war and the loss of their nation, more than a thousand Koreans leave their homes for the promise of land in unknown Mexico. After a long sea voyage, these emigrants — thieves and royals, priests and soldiers, orphans and entire families — discover that they have been sold into indentured servitude.
Aboard the ship, the orphan Ijeong fell in love with a nobleman’s daughter; separated when the hacendados claim their laborers, he vows to find her. Then, after years of working in the punishing heat of the henequen fields, the Koreans are caught in the midst of a Mexican revolution. A tale of star-crossed love, political turmoil, and the dangers of seeking freedom in a new world, Black Flower is an epic story based on a little-known moment in history.
“Kim is at the leading edge of a new breed of South Korean writers.” — Philadelphia City Paper
“Spare and beautiful.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Readers who remember the historical fiction of Thomas B. Costain, Zoé Oldenbourg and Anya Seton will appreciate [Kim’s] extensive research and empathic imagination." — Kirkus Reviews
Review
"The romantic belief is that art can either familiarize the strange or estrange the familiar. Now here's a guy who can do both at the same time. Young-ha Kim, very much like his protagonist, is a spy.and#160;He is spying on humanity; the secret information he provides is invaluable." and#8212;Etgar Keret, author of
The Nimrod Flipout"What a ride! Young-ha Kim is clearly a writer to watch out for. Your Republic Is Calling You promises to be the breakout book from Korea. Through his compelling narration of events happening in a single day, heand#160;leads us into the heart and soul of modern Korea and tells us and what it means to be human in a world bristling with borders. I cannot praise it enough." and#8212;Vikas Swarup, author of Slumdog Millionaire
"Your Republic Is Calling You is that rare thing, a novel that is simultaneously suspenseful and meditative, an intriguingly provocative novel about freedom, duty, and inevitability. This highly-charged novel kept me up half the night, turning pages; I spent the other half wide awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking and thinking about it." and#8212;Dean Bakopoulos, author of Please Donand#8217;t Come Back from the Moon
"An ordinary day in the life of a North Korean film distributor turns into an extraordinary adventure when it is revealed that he is a South Korean sleeper agent.and#160;Young-ha Kim narrates the formidable choice that his hero will have to make with unflinching honesty and masterful suspense. Your Republic is Callingand#160;You is a thoroughly engrossing book." and#8212;Laila Lalami, author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and Secret Son"[An] ambitious novel from one of Koreaand#8217;s most admired writers . . . Energized by a powerful sense of the difficulty of 'belonging' in a dangerous place and time.and#160; Perhaps the most intriguing and accomplished Korean fiction yet to appear in English translation." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Deeply compelling . . .a riveting tale of espionage along with keen observations of human behavior." -- Publishers Weekly
Review
"Kim stumbled upon a little-known piece of history during a conversation on a trans-Pacific flight. This history was so fascinating, he wanted to base a novel on it. This is that novel. From the broad sweep of history to insightful and convincing individual instances of self-discovery, this book develops on many levels and shines a light on issues of gender, class, religious and racial conflicts, and the ways that disparate cultures clash and sometimes meld... Readers who remember the historical fiction of Thomas B. Costain, Zoe Oldenbourg and Anya Seton will appreciate the extensive research and empathic imagination that went into this novel." —Kirkus "This sprawling epic novel dips heavily into the concurrent Mexican revolution and the treatment of the Mayans. Spare and beautiful, Kim's novel offers a look at the roots of the little-known tribulations of the Korean diaspora in Mexico." —Publishers Weekly, boxed review "[Black Flower] shines light on how immigrants coped during a terrible historical moment." —Booklist "Kim Young-ha takes a small moment of Korean history, when 1,033 Koreans embarked as contracted laborers in Mexico on April 4, 1905, and transforms this moment into a powerful, sweeping epic that resonates across continents and oceans, bridging East and West . . . Kim seamlessly weaves the history and the social structure of Mexico into the story of the Koreans, a story of exploitation and greed, while he also shows the resiliency and dignity of the Korean characters who adapt to the harsh conditions and cope as best they can . . . The scope and breadth of Kim Young-has talent is evident on every page of this breathtaking novel . . . This novel engages, informs, and in a paraphrase of Kafka, breaks the frozen sea within us." —List Magazine
Synopsis
Black Flower puts a fictional spin on a little-known moment when thousands of Koreans fled political upheaval and the fall of their empire to seek land and freedom in Mexico, found themselves bonded laborers on its plantations, and eventually started a revolution that led briefly to a "new Korea."
Synopsis
“Kim takes a small moment of Korean history . . . and transforms this moment into a powerful, sweeping epic that resonates across continents and oceans, bridging East and West . . . The scope and breadth of Kim’s talent is evident on every page of this breathtaking novel.” —
List In 1904, as the Russo-Japanese War deepened, Asia was parceled out to rising powers and the Korean empire was annexed by Japan. Facing war and the loss of their nation, more than a thousand Koreans left their homes to seek possibility elsewhere—in unknown Mexico.
After a long sea voyage, these emigrants—thieves and royals, priests and soldiers, orphans and entire families—disembark with the promise of land. Soon they discover the truth: they have been sold into indentured servitude.
Aboard ship, an orphan, Ijeong, fell in love with the daughter of a noble; separated when the various haciendados claim their laborers, he vows to find her. After years of working in the punishing heat of the henequen fields, the Koreans are caught in the midst of a Mexican revolution. Some flee with Ijeong to Guatemala, where they found a New Korea amid Mayan ruins.
A tale of star-crossed love, political turmoil, and the dangers of seeking freedom in a new world, Black Flower is an epic story based on a little-known moment in history.
Synopsis
A foreign film importer, Gi-yeong is a family man with a wife and daughter. An aficionado of Heineken, soccer, and sushi, he is also a North Korean spy who has been living among his enemies for twenty-one years.
and#160;
Suddenly he receives a mysterious email, a directive seemingly from the home office. He has one day to return to headquarters. He hasnand#8217;t heard from anyone in over ten years. Why is he being called back now? Is this message really from Pyongyang? Is he returning to receive new orders or to be executed for a lack of diligence? Has someone in the South discovered his secret identity? Is this a trap?
Spanning the course of one day, Your Republic Is Calling You is an emotionally taut, psychologically astute, haunting novel that reveals the depth of one particularly gripping family secret and the way in which we sometimes never really know the people we love. Confronting moral questions on small and large scales, it mines the political and cultural transformations that have transformed South Korea since the 1980s. A lament for the fate of a certain kind of man and a certain kind of manhood, it is ultimately a searing study of the long and insidious effects of dividing a nation in two.
Synopsis
"This sprawling epic novel dips heavily into the concurrent Mexican revolution and the treatment of the Mayans. Spare and beautiful, Kim's novel offers a look at the roots of the little-known tribulations of the Korean diaspora in Mexico." —Publishers Weekly, starred and boxed review
Synopsis
Young-ha Kim'sand#160;latest novel followsand#160;a North Korean spy, heavily undercover and long dormant in the South, on the day he is suddenly called back to headquarters.
About the Author
YOUNG-HA KIMand#8217;s Black Flower won Korea's Dong-in Prize; his first novel,andnbsp;I Have the Right to Destroy Myself wasandnbsp;highly acclaimedandnbsp;upon publication in the United States.andnbsp;He hasandnbsp;earned a reputation as the most talented and prolific Korean writer of his generation, publishing five novels and three collections of short stories.