The first novel about present-day North Korea to be published in the West. A moving and true-to-life tale of courage in the face of oppression and exile. Hyejin Kim's Jia follows the adventures of an orphaned young woman, Jia, who has the grace of a dancer but the misfortune of coming from a politically suspect family. In the isolated mining village of her childhood, Jia's father, a science teacher, questions government intrusion into his classroom and is taken away by police, never to be heard