The Unreliable People

Is all love doomed under a heartless regime? Antonina is a student at the prestigious Academy of Art in St Petersburg, though at times she feels she might be a better fit at the Centre of Non-conformist Art across town. She knows she stands out as different, being neither Russian, Korean nor Kazak -- and yet she embodies them all. She is Koryo-Saram -- a descendant of the exiled population that Stalin labelled the Unreliable People. But what does that mean? And why did the strange, elegant woman entice her as a young child to climb out of her bedroom window to go on a long train journey through Kazakhstan?

This is a compelling story where love and loss intersect unexpectedly with a Korean fable about a crow king and a rice farmer's wife.

Featured in the February 2019 Great Reads newsletter.
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