About the Author

Paul Yoon is the author of six works of fiction: Etna; Once the Shore, a New York Times Notable Book; Snow Hunters, winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award; The Mountain, an NPR Best Book of the Year; Run Me to Earth, a Time Must-Read Books of 2020 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction; and The Hive and the Honey, winner of the 20th Annual Story Prize and longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates prize.

Reviews

‘Haunting . . . Run Me to Earth is a beautiful, understated novel which jumps backwards and forwards in time and perspective. Told by a range of narrators, some of whom stand at a slight angle to the main characters, it has a fractured, abstracted feel which mirrors the dissociation caused by early trauma . . . His writing may be restrained, but it is not lacking in lyricism or insight’ 
*The Big Issue*

‘Yoon’s style is spare and subtle; some of his most powerful descriptions are of absences . . . There is no melodrama here, despite the intensity of the trauma . . . a humane corrective to those murderous abstractions’
*Times Literary Supplement*

'Richly layered . . . Throughout the novel, beauty and vio­lence coexist in a universe that seems by turns cruel and won­drous. . . .Yoon has stitched an intense meditation on the devas­tating nature of war and displacement'
*New York Times Book Review*

'Spellbinding . . . With his panoramic vision of the displacements of war, Yoon reminds us of the people never considered or ac­counted for in the halls of power'
*The Washington Post*

'Yoon’s greatest skill lies in crafting subtle moments that un­derline the strange and specific sadness inherent to trauma . . . As children around the world continue to grow up surrounded by violence and war, authors like Yoon seek to understand how experiencing those horrors shapes the adults they eventually be­come. And in Run Me to Earth, those horrors are scattered like unexploded bombs, waiting to go off at any time'
*Time magazine*

'If you truly believe in the transformative power of literature then you must read this book. Run Me to Earth is a genuine mas­terpiece: fierce, tender, wise, earth-shattering, pulsating with love and hope'
*Miriam Toews, author of Women Talking*

'With Run Me to Earth, Paul Yoon proves, yet again, that he is a master at finding depth of emotion in formal restraint and dis­covering the timeless core in the most urgent issues of our day. This is one of those rare novels that stays with us to become, over the years, a standard with which we measure other books'
*Hernan Diaz, author of In the Distance, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize*

'[A] gorgeous book about the bonds of friendship and the ruptures of war. Even more significantly, in telling the sto­ries of a trio of Laotian teens, it inverts and reorients the American war story . . . Yoon is a master of subtle storytell­ing often leaving powerful emotions unexpressed, violent acts undetailed'
*Los Angeles Times*

'Engrossing and luminous . . . Yoon crafts an exceptionally human and poignant story'
*Newsweek*

'This story of three Laotian orphans making their way through their war-torn world in the 1960s asks important questions about what it means to feel safe, and to call a place home'
*Vogue*

'Yoon again exemplifies his unparalleled ability to create a qui­etly spectacular narrative that reveals the unfathomable worst and unwavering best of humanity; the result here provides mes­merizing gratification'
*Booklist*

'In another life, Yoon (The Mountain, 2017, etc.) might have been a sculptor, carving the excess off his creations until they’re perfect. In this decades-spanning examination of the survival of three orphans with the bad luck to have been born into the ruins of a battlefield, he’s stretching his abilities while still writing with deliberate, almost vigilant care . . . Yoon’s imaginative prose and affection for his characters make the story larger than a look at the ways people survive . . . Another masterpiece in miniature about the unpredictable directions a life can take'
*Kirkus Reviews*

'Yoon displays uncanny range, imagination, and originality'
*The Millions*

'[A] sparely written gem . . . Yoon masterfully weaves their divergent story lines, unveiling the different trajectories of their lives. . . . [A] finely wrought tale about courage and endurance'
*Publishers Weekly*