The Last Exiles by Ann Shin,

HarperCollins

In North Korea – in Kim Jong-il’s reign – destiny was dictated by pedigree. Suja’s prominent family – her father’s the government newspaper editor – enables her an internship as a photojournalist. She goes to Kim Il-sung University, where penniless scholarship student Jin Lee Park wears a farmer’s jacket, boots with toes worn through.

The city boys call him “Dung-eater”, but he’s the smartest in the class with witty banter. People like him. Both kind and intelligent, Suja and Jin meet their match; fall deeply in love. He hides the extreme poverty of his family, whose state-run rations ceased a year ago.

His mother scrapes the inner bark of pine trees for soup. Jin steals a sack of (confiscated) cornmeal from a police station. Neighbours smell it cooking and tell the authorities. Jin is publicly flogged and sent to a labour camp in China. Suja decides to find him, swimming the river into China. Sold as wife for a farmer’s son, she is raped. But Jin escaped and is looking for her too. This unflinching story soars with dignity.