Our own SAU Professor of English, Carl Herzig, has authored The Fearless Passage of Steven Kim. The story is a true-life depiction of Steven Kim, a Korean-American businessman who was imprisoned in China for helping North Korean refugees. Kim went through an exciting and eye-opening journey that helped him rediscover his faith through helping the struggling refugees.
The book conveys themes pertaining to women issues and religious beliefs. Herzig describes the story as both inspiring and exciting. A book he hopes readers won’t want to put down once they start.
The book opens our eyes to some of the things going on in other parts of the world, in this case, China and North Korea. A great deal of news has focused on North Korea recently, but “sometimes we forget,” said Herzig, “that there are real people suffering behind the headlines.”
In the story, Kim loses himself in his quest to obtain “The American Dream.” Herzig relates the book to many people in our culture. “We are driven by our desire for a career and success, and it’s easy to forget our values, family, and faith—what’s important in life. This is an important challenge for all of us, but especially for college students and graduates who are beginning their careers.”
Try evaluating your life and make sure that in between the stress of homework and job hunting, you remember the things that are truly important to you.
Here is how the book begins, set in 2003:
Shackled upright to a wooden bench, the American peered through the scratched, grimy window as the train rumbled across the countryside. Farm after farm rushed by—countless villages whose names he’d never know. The sky was just getting light; it was not yet dawn. They were headed north.
He coughed weakly, the old carriage thick with cigarette smoke and a sour human stench. They had just pulled out from a station, and a crowd of passengers speaking a dissonant hash of Chinese dialects pushed along the aisle to get through to the next car. They glared down with contempt as they passed him and the nine other prisoners—three men and six women, all refugees from North Korea—headed to a laogais, a gulag, labor camp, deep in the heart of mainland China.
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The Fearless Passage of Steven Kim is available in print, Nook, and Kindle.
It can be found purchased from the link below: