Author Adam Johnson has been awarded America’s highest prize for literature, the Pulitzer for his work, ‘The Orphan Master’s Son’ (published by Random House), a fictional story of life in North Korea under a repressive regime. Published just after Kim Jong-il’s death and subsequent rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-un, the Pulitzer jury called it “an exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart.”
Although the Pulitzer Prize for fiction is usually awarded to a novel “preferably dealing with American life”, in this case an exception was made. The book beat out stiff competition from ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank’ by Nathan Englander, and ‘The Snow Child’ by Eowyn Ivey.
The press release for ‘The Orphan Master’s Son’ gives the following synopsis for the book: 
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang—and an influential father who runs a work camp for orphans. Superiors in the state soon recognize the boy’s loyalty and keen instincts. Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do rises in the ranks. He becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.” In this epic, critically acclaimed tour de force, Adam Johnson provides a riveting portrait of a world rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love.
‘The Orphan Master’s Son’ has appeared on many critics’ top ten lists, including AGI’s own list of the Top 10 Books on Asia from 2012. This has been a great couple of months for literature from and about Asia. Earlier in April, Haruki Murakami’s newest novel, described as, “the story of a man who looks back on his past and tries to rediscover the meaning of life”, was released in Japan. And just last month, Malaysia’s Tan Twan Eng won the Man Asian Literary Prize for ‘The Garden of Evening Mists’. The author will appear as the closing guest of the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature in London next month. If you’re looking for more great Asia-related books this Spring, why not head over to AGI’s Recommended Reads?
By Tim Holm
