Ann Shin

Ann Shin’s background gives this novel a unique depth. A Toronto-based poet and filmmaker, she witnessed the gruesome reality of North Korean defection while directing the 2013 documentary The Defector: Escape from North Korea. Her experience capturing the journeys of defectors risking their lives to cross borders, along with the brokers who help them, elevates this novel from simple fiction to the realm of a painful "faction" (fact-based fiction). Through the combination of a poet’s delicate style and a documentary director’s sharp realism, the reader is made to vividly experience the unknown space that is North Korea.