A "mesmerizing" (PW, James McBride) "magnificent" (Ha Jin) intergenerational coming-of-age novel set in South Korea-about friendship, belonging, and displacement. Growing up outside a US military base in South Korea in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Insu-the son of a Korean mother and a German father enlisted in the US Army-spends his days with his "half and half" friends skipping school, selling scavenged Western goods on the black market, watching Hollywood movies, and testing the boundaries between childhood and adulthood. When he hears a legend that water collected in a human skull will cure any sickness, he vows to find some in order to heal his ailing Big Uncle, a geomancer who has been exiled by the family to a mountain cave to die. Insu's quest takes him and his friends on a sprawling, wild journey into some of South Korea's darkest corners, opening them up to a world beyond their grasp. Meanwhile, Big Uncle has embraced his solitude and fate, and as he recalls his wartime experiences of betrayal and lost love, he attempts to teach his nephew that life is not limited to what we can see-or think we know. Largely autobiographical and deeply rooted in time and place, Skull Water is the story of a boy coming into his own-and the ways the past continues to haunt the present in a country struggling to confront its troubled history as it moves into modernity.

Since the 1930s, Korean American writers have come to maintain an important place in our national literature, publishing some of the most exciting fiction of the twentieth century. The stories in this first anthology of Korean American fiction represent the very best work of these writers, including several pieces published for the first time.
Contributors include Patti Kim, Chang-rae Lee, Susan Choi, Heinz Insu Fenkl, Leonard Chang, Nora Okja Keller, and Richard E. Kim.

"Written in a mood of total austerity; and yet the passion of the book is perpetually beating up against its seemingly barren surface...I am deeply moved." -Philip Roth
During the early weeks of the Korean War, Captain Lee, a young South Korean officer, is ordered to investigate the kidnapping and mass murder of North Korean ministers by Communist forces. For propaganda purposes, the priests are declared martyrs, but as he delves into the crime, Lee finds himself asking: What if they were not martyrs? What if they renounced their faith in the face of death, failing both God and country? Should the people be fed this lie? Part thriller, part mystery, part existential treatise, "The Martyred" is a stunning meditation on truth, religion, and faith in times of crisis.

Though North Korea holds the attention of the world, it is still rare for us to hear North Korean voices, beyond those few who have escaped. Known only by his pen name, the poet and author 'Bandi' stands as one of the most distinctive and original dissident writers to emerge from the country, and his work is all the more striking for the fact that he continues to reside in North Korea, writing in secret, with his work smuggled out of the country by supporters and relatives. The Red Years represents the first collection of Bandi's poetry to be made available in English. As he did in his first work The Accusation, Bandi here gives us a rare glimpse into everyday life and survival in North Korea. Singularly poignant and evocative, The Red Years stands as a testament to the power of the human spirit to endure and resist even the most repressive of regimes.