Flashlight
Published by: Vintage
The astonishing story of one family swept up in the tides of the twentieth century, ranging from post-war Japan to suburban America and the North Korean regime.
One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town. Hours later, Louisa wakes on the beach, soaked to the skin. Her father is missing: presumably drowned.
This sudden event shatters their small family. As Louisa and her American mother return to the US, Serk’s disappearance reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened that night slowly unravels.
Read an extract from the book here.
Our judges said:
Flashlight is the mournful journey of a family across Japan, Korea and the USA, following the disappearance of a father in a coastal town in Japan, as well as a deep reflection on Japanese and American imperial legacies. Susan Choi masterfully demonstrates the impact of trauma and the way we multiply our identities, following several characters through its wide-ranging narrative. The novel is also an uncompromising analysis of difficult family ties, the impact of racial and gender discriminations, as well as the healing power of hope. "
