Hyejin Kim has written for numerous publications, including Asia Times. She has a Ph.D. in global affairs from Rutgers University. In 2003 she received the Korean Novelist Association's award for Best Television Drama Scenario. Jia was inspired by her encounters with North Korean refugees in northern China.

Jia

"Vivid and poignantly understated, Jia is authentic and heartbreaking; it is an absolute must read for those who wish to understand the tragedy of North Korea." —Heinz Insu Fenkl, author of Memories of My Ghost Brother

"As a depiction of North Korean society, it is both terrifying and illuminating. For a South Korean to imagines the lives of North Koreans, requires not just a leap of imagination but a willingness to pierce through a welter of clichés about life on the other side of the border...The stories of Jia's rise and fall, and that of the people she meets on the road, are certainly fascinating. They also ring true, for they correspond in outline and detail to the stories of North Korean refugees that have already been published." —Korean Quarterly

"Kim, who frequently writes on Asian issues, crafts an unsettling account of a North Korean woman caught up in events she neither controls nor understands." —Kirkus Reviews