Sorcerer of Pyonyang

In the most isolated country on earth, a chance discovery shapes a young man`s destiny. Growing up amid the starvation and oppression of 1990s North Korea, 10-year-old Cho Jun-su stumbles upon a mysterious game, left behind in a hotel room by a rare foreign visitor. As Jun-su painstakingly deciphers the rules of the game in secret, he unlocks an inner world that is at first an antidote and then a threat to the political cult that surrounds him. Over time, the game leads Jun-su on a spellbinding and unexpected journey through the hidden layers of his country, towards precocious success, glory, love, betrayal, prison, a spell at the pinnacle of the North Korean elite and an extraordinary kind of redemption. Warm, uplifting, and deeply-researched,The Sorcerer of Pyongyang is a love story and a tale of survival against the odds. Inspired by the testimony of North Korean refugees, and drawing on the author`s personal experience of North Korea, it testifies to the power of empathy and the human imagination.