This is the remarkable and wrenching memoir of a South Korean dissident who was unjustly accused of spying for the North Koreans and jailed for nineteen years as a political prisoner. The updated English-language edition traces Suh Sung's experiences as a Korean citizen of Japan before his incarceration, his time in prison, and his subsequent release. Readers will be moved and awed by Suh's courage under torture and solitary confinement. This memoir is an invaluable document for all concerned about human rights and a moving testimony to one man's incredible determination.
At age twenty-two, Yosef Mendelevich participated in an attempt to hijack a plane to the West an act designed to raise awareness about the desperate plight of Soviet Jews. He was arrested before the plane ever left the ground and served twelve years in the Soviet gulag. This is the story of one man s resistance against tyranny, and his daily struggle to retain his Jewishness and his humanity in a system built to extinguish both. This is a testament to the strength of the human soul and an inspiration to us all.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. In boyhood, Louis Zamperini was an incorrigible delinquent. As a teenager, he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when World War II began, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to a doomed flight on a May afternoon in 1943. When his Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, against all odds, Zamperini survived, adrift on a foundering life raft. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. Appearing in paperback for the first time—with twenty arresting new photos and an extensive Q&A with the author—Unbroken is an unforgettable testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit, brought vividly to life by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the Indies Choice Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year award “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] one-in-a-billion story . . . designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid: It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring.”—New York “Staggering . . . mesmerizing . . . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People “A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.”—The Washington Post “Ambitious and powerful . . . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . . . incredible . . . [Hillenbrand] has crafted another masterful blend of sports, history and overcoming terrific odds; this is biography taken to the nth degree, a chronicle of a remarkable life lived through extraordinary times.”—The Dallas Morning News “An astonishing testament to the superhuman power of tenacity.”—Entertainment Weekly “A tale of triumph and redemption . . . astonishingly detailed.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “[A] masterfully told true story . . . nothing less than a marvel.”—Washingtonian “[Hillenbrand tells this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.”—Time “Hillenbrand [is] one of our best writers of narrative history. You don’t have to be a sports fan or a war-history buff to devour this book—you just have to love great storytelling.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
From the heartbroken protagonist she depicted in her first published story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," to the reflective widow she described in her last novel, The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty wrote realistically about the shadows and radiance of love. In a meticulous exploration of this theme, Sally Wolff combines new readings of Welty's fiction with contextual information and background drawn from a nineteen-year friendship with Welty. A common image in much of Welty's fiction, the rose has traditionally symbolized love in literature. Wolff argues that the dark rose-from the height of its brilliance to the end of its life-serves as an apt metaphor for the dichotomies Welty presents, equally suggestive of beauty and sadness, as well as the comic, tragic, and mysterious qualities of love. While some of Welty's characters seem autobiographical-a daughter remembering her parents' marriage or a broodingly hopeful member of a large family wedding-at times Welty analyzes from a distance the dynamics of successful and troubled loving relationships. Although Welty experienced love several times during her life, she never married, and Wolff argues that this vantage point allowed Welty to write from an objective perspective in her fiction about the varied dimensions of love. A Dark Rose explores several texts to examine Welty's nuanced and intricate portrayals of love. Though love in Welty's fiction fails, wears thin, and even faces death-it remains a vital force in her characters' lives.
