It has been nominated for an American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie
Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.

An astonishing story of the mysteries, truths, and deceptions that follow the odyssey of Ahn Gil¬mo, a young math savant, as he escapes from the most isolated country in the world and searches for the only family he has left

An unidentified body is discovered in New York City, with numbers and symbols are written in blood near the corpse. Gil¬mo, a North Korean national who interprets the world through numbers, formulas, and mathematical theories, is arrested on the spot. Angela, a CIA operative, is assigned to gain his trust and access his unique thought-process.

The enigmatic Gil¬mo used to have a quiet life back in Pyongyang. But when his father, a preeminent doctor is discovered to be a secret Christian, he is subsequently incarcerated along with Gilmo, in a political prison overseen by a harsh, cruel warden.

There, Gilmo meets the spirited Yeong-ae, who becomes his only friend. When Yeong-¬ae manages to escape, Gil¬mo flees to track her down. He uses his peculiar gifts to navigate betrayal and the criminal underworld of east Asia―a world wholly alien to everything he's ever known.

In The Boy Who Escaped Paradise, celebrated author J. M. Lee delves into a hidden world filled with vivid characters trapped by ideology, greed, and despair. Gil¬mo's saga forces the reader to question the line between good and evil, truth and falsehood, captivity and freedom.

 

J. M. Lee has sold hundreds of thousands of books in his native Korea. One, Deep Rooted Tree, was made into a popular T.V. series. He is the author of The Investigation, also published by Pegasus Books.

Chi-Young Kim is the celebrated translator of the Man Asian Literary Prize-winning international bestseller Please Look After Mom.