The reader feels as if he is in Chongjin, where starving people ate the bark off trees; or atop Mount Taesong with the elite of Pyongyang, whose existence is a mix of sadism and whimsy; or with the masses who… — Adam Johnson Copy Share Image
“The darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you” — Adam Johnson Copy Share Image
“Was this what a family was, how it grew—straight as the children’s teeth? Sure, there was an arm in a sling and over time… — Adam Johnson Copy Share Image
“Real stories like this, human ones, could get you sent to prison, and it didn’t matter what they were about. It didn’t matter if… — Adam Johnson Copy Share Image
“To survive in this world, you got to be many times a coward but at least once a hero” — Adam Johnson Copy Share Image
“It wasn’t that I didn’t know anyone’s phone number—I didn’t—it was that only at this moment did I realize I had no one to… — Adam Johnson Copy Share Image
“But I held her in my heart, and would stay with her all my days, even if a great many of them were trying… — Adam Johnson Copy Share Image
The next day, she was silent. For breakfast, she murdered an onion and served it raw. — Adam Johnson Copy Share Image
“The urge to create a fictional narrative is a mysterious one, and when an idea comes, the writer's sense of what a story wants… — adam johnson Copy Share Image
