Jia: A Novel of North Korea
The first novel about present-day North Korea to be published in the West.

A moving and true-to-life tale of courage in the face of oppression and exile.

Hyejin Kim’s Jia follows the adventures of an orphaned young woman, Jia, who has the grace of a dancer but the misfortune of coming from a politically suspect family. In the isolated mining village of her childhood, Jia’s father, a science teacher, questions government intrusion into his classroom and is taken away by police, never to be heard from again. Now Jia must leave the village where her family has been sent as punishment to carve a path for herself. Her journey takes her first to Pyongyang, and finally to Shenyang in northeast China. Along the way, she falls in love with a soldier, befriends beggars, is kidnapped, beaten, and sold, negotiates Chinese culture, and learns to balance cruel necessity with the possibilities of kindness and love. Above all, Jia must remain wary, always ready to adapt to the “capricious political winds” of modern North Korea and China.
1100627257
Jia: A Novel of North Korea
The first novel about present-day North Korea to be published in the West.

A moving and true-to-life tale of courage in the face of oppression and exile.

Hyejin Kim’s Jia follows the adventures of an orphaned young woman, Jia, who has the grace of a dancer but the misfortune of coming from a politically suspect family. In the isolated mining village of her childhood, Jia’s father, a science teacher, questions government intrusion into his classroom and is taken away by police, never to be heard from again. Now Jia must leave the village where her family has been sent as punishment to carve a path for herself. Her journey takes her first to Pyongyang, and finally to Shenyang in northeast China. Along the way, she falls in love with a soldier, befriends beggars, is kidnapped, beaten, and sold, negotiates Chinese culture, and learns to balance cruel necessity with the possibilities of kindness and love. Above all, Jia must remain wary, always ready to adapt to the “capricious political winds” of modern North Korea and China.
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Jia: A Novel of North Korea

Jia: A Novel of North Korea

by Heyjin Kim
Jia: A Novel of North Korea

Jia: A Novel of North Korea

by Heyjin Kim

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Overview

The first novel about present-day North Korea to be published in the West.

A moving and true-to-life tale of courage in the face of oppression and exile.

Hyejin Kim’s Jia follows the adventures of an orphaned young woman, Jia, who has the grace of a dancer but the misfortune of coming from a politically suspect family. In the isolated mining village of her childhood, Jia’s father, a science teacher, questions government intrusion into his classroom and is taken away by police, never to be heard from again. Now Jia must leave the village where her family has been sent as punishment to carve a path for herself. Her journey takes her first to Pyongyang, and finally to Shenyang in northeast China. Along the way, she falls in love with a soldier, befriends beggars, is kidnapped, beaten, and sold, negotiates Chinese culture, and learns to balance cruel necessity with the possibilities of kindness and love. Above all, Jia must remain wary, always ready to adapt to the “capricious political winds” of modern North Korea and China.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781573444842
Publisher: Cleis Press
Publication date: 07/01/2007
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 264
File size: 389 KB

About the Author

Hyejin Kim has written for numerous publications, including Asia Times. She has a Ph.D. in global affairs from Rutgers University. In 2003 she received the Korean Novelist Association's award for Best Television Drama Scenario. Jia was inspired by her encounters with North Korean refugees in northern China. Jia "Vivid and poignantly understated, Jia is authentic and heartbreaking; it is an absolute must read for those who wish to understand the tragedy of North Korea." —Heinz Insu Fenkl, author of Memories of My Ghost Brother "As a depiction of North Korean society, it is both terrifying and illuminating. For a South Korean to imagines the lives of North Koreans, requires not just a leap of imagination but a willingness to pierce through a welter of clichés about life on the other side of the border...The stories of Jia's rise and fall, and that of the people she meets on the road, are certainly fascinating. They also ring true, for they correspond in outline and detail to the stories of North Korean refugees that have already been published." —Korean Quarterly "Kim, who frequently writes on Asian issues, crafts an unsettling account of a North Korean woman caught up in events she neither controls nor understands." —Kirkus Reviews
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