Tim Kang reads from Adam Johnson's THE ORPHAN MASTER'S SON

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Uploaded by on Jan 3, 2012

Narrator Tim Kang offers a preview (and real-life look into the recording process!) of Adam Johnson's THE ORPHAN MASTER'S SON, available from Random House Audio January 10, 2012.

About the book:
Part-bildungsroman, part-political thriller, part-expose of the most secretive country in the world, The Orphan Master's Son is the story of a North Korean orphan who rises up through the ranks of the DPRK army as a tunnel soldier, then as a professional kidnapper, a military intelligence officer, ultimately to become--for a very short time--a rival to the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. Yet it is also a love story--as one character in the novel claims, "the greatest North Korean love story ever told"-- in which the protagonist, Jun Doh, an assassin shunned by society since birth and stalked in his dreams by apparitions of love, finally finds it with the wife of a man whom he has just replaced in the Dear Leader's ranks. And it's also a realistic portrait of a hidden, haunted and surreal place, an exploration of a notorious totalitarian regime and the physical and moral devastation of the North Korean people. However way you slice it, this is a towering literary achievement, a love story packed with tenderness and dread, its characters battling for their lives on every page. An excerpt from The Orphan Master's Son: Citizens, gather round your loudspeakers, for we bring important updates! In your kitchens, in your offices, on your factory floors--wherever your loudspeaker is located, turn up the volume! In local news, our Dear Leader Kim Jong Il was seen offering on-the-spot guidance to the engineers deepening the Taedong River channel. While the Dear Leader lectured to the dredge operators, many doves were seen to spontaneously flock above him, hovering to provide our Reverend General some much needed shade on a hot day. Also to report is a request from Pyongyang's Minister of Public Safety, who asks that while pigeon-snaring season is in full swing, trip wires and snatch loops be placed out of the reach of our youngest comrades. And don't forget, citizens: the ban on stargazing is still in effect. Later in the broadcast, we'll reveal the winning recipe for this month's cooking contest. Hundreds of recipes were entered, but only one can be declared the best way to prepare--Pumpkin Rind Soup! But first comes grave news from the East Sea, where American aggressors flirt with acts of all-out war after stopping and looting a North Korean fishing vessel. Once again, the Yankees have violated Korean waters to steal the precious contents of a sovereign ship, all the while accusing us of everything from banditry to kidnapping to cruelty to sharks. First off, it is the Americans and their puppets who are the pirates of the sea. Secondly, did an American woman not recently row around the entire world to defect to our great nation, a worker's paradise where citizens want for nothing? That alone should be proof enough that these persistent accusations of kidnapping are ludicrous.

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  • Ahhh he can read me a bedtime story any night!

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