Chi-Young Kim, Translator
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Your Republic Is Calling You
Your Republic Is Calling You

"Perhaps the most intriguing and accomplished Korean fiction yet to appear in English translation."

Kirkus Reviews

"Deeply compelling.... Kim offers a riveting tale of espionage along with keen observations of human behavior."

Publishers Weekly

"A smart new literary thriller by...one of South Korea's best and most worldly writers, with a knack for Kafkaesque surrealism and irony."

National Public Radio

"After only a few pages it’s clear that Young-ha Kim is a master novelist.... With its casual style (a triumph of translation by Chi-Young Kim) and its hectic plot, it would do fine as a beach book. Yet it’s something much deeper: an eye-opening depiction of the globalization of Eastern society."

Bloomberg News

"An ordinary day in the life of a South Korean film distributor turns into an extraordinary adventure when it is revealed that he is a North Korean sleeper agent. Young-ha Kim narrates the formidable choice that his hero will have to make with unflinching honesty and masterful suspense. Your Republic is Calling You is a thoroughly engrossing book."

—Laila Lalami, author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and Secret Son

"The romantic belief is that art can either familiarize the strange or estrange the familiar. Now here's a guy who can do both at the same time. Young-ha Kim, very much like his protagonist, is a spy. He is spying on humanity; the secret information he provides is invaluable."

—Etgar Keret, author of The Nimrod Flipout

"What a ride! Young-ha Kim is clearly a writer to watch out for. Your Republic Is Calling You promises to be the breakout book from Korea. Through his compelling narration of events happening in a single day, he leads us into the heart and soul of modern Korea and tells us what it means to be human in a world bristling with borders. I cannot praise it enough."

—Vikas Swarup, author of Slumdog Millionaire

"Your Republic Is Calling You is that rare thing, a novel that is simultaneously suspenseful and meditative, an intriguingly provocative novel about freedom, duty, and inevitability. This highly-charged novel kept me up half the night, turning pages; I spent the other half wide awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking and thinking about it."

—Dean Bakopoulos, author of Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon

"Best book of the year."

10 Magazine

"Outstanding...taut, engaging, ironic...."

—Korean Modern Literature in Translation (ktlit.com)


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