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**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025**

‘Ferociously smart and full of surprises’ Eleanor Catton

‘Instantly bewitching’ Jennifer Egan

‘A rich generational saga that teems with intelligence’ Financial Times

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 take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town while her father Serk, a Korean emigre, completes an academic secondment from his American university. When Louisa wakes hours later, she has washed up on the beach and her father is missing, probably drowned.

The disappearance of Louisa’s father shatters their small family unit. As Louisa and her American mother Anne return to the US, this traumatic event reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened to Serk slowly unravels.

‘Big, bold and surprising’ Guardian

‘Engrossing… Choi is an astute, convincing writer’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Susan Choi is a master of rendering relationships with utter particularity’ Raven Leilani, author of Luster

‘I couldn’t put it down, and once I finished, I couldn’t stop thinking about it’ Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy

Publisher Review

In this superbly crafted book, the fraught geopolitics of family life – the official secrets, the acts of espionage, the diplomatic failures – are set against the intimacies, grievances, conflicting memories, and unmet needs of national allegiance. Ferociously smart and full of surprises, Flashlight is thrilling to the last — Eleanor Catton, author of Birnam Wood Flashlight is instantly bewitching: a mysterious family tragedy whose solution reaches beyond psychology into geopolitics. Susan Choi’s fictional investigation reveals a writer at the height of her spectacular powers — Jennifer Egan, author of The Candy House Flashlight is a sensitive familial portrait, rigorous in its scope and complexity of feeling. Susan Choi is a master of rendering relationships with utter particularity — Raven Leilani, author of Luster I devoured Flashlight. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down, and once I finished, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The plot builds like a symphony rising to a crescendo, full of surprise and wonder. The story is as astonishing as it is entirely plausible. Susan Choi clearly knows well the fraught geopolitics of Korea and Japan, and did her homework — Barbara Demick, author of NOTHING TO ENVY In a brilliant feat of storytelling, both intimate and sweeping, Susan Choi has created a profoundly moving epic that blends a tender family portrait with a haunting examination of the Korean diaspora. Flashlight is that rare novel that has everything I want in fiction: gorgeous writing, fascinating characters I fell in love with, an immersive, addictive story with an ending that made me gasp, then cry. I’m in awe — Angie Kim, author of Happiness Falls Sprawling, rootless, and windswept, Flashlight is a psychologically astute and beautifully intimate examination of family tragedy, told from both the micro-perspective of domestic mundanity, and the dizzyingly wide angle of international politics. It reads like a classic, a political thriller, but also a tender portrait of three people who do not fit, yet somehow find themselves to be a family — Jenny Mustard, author of Okay Days A shapeshifting novel that reconfigures reality at every turn, Susan Choi’s Flashlight is a powerful beam searching through the cavernous depths of alienation, of the cruel, fierce love binding a singular family, and the historical reverberations of unthinkable displacement and loss. With masterful control, Choi charts us through a journey that defies every expectation-its cumulative effect is epic, devastating, and incandescent — Aube Rey Lescure, author of River East, River West Susan Choi casts a fascinating light on the troubled borders between identities, countries, historical periods and sometimes even her admirable sentences as she, so expertly, tells the story of a family that can’t quite find its moorings — Romesh Gunesekera, author of Reef What’s sort of amazing is that a novel with such a locomotive of a plot … could just as reasonably be described as character-driven … Choi is a writer you can trust to make the journey worthwhile. Never sentimental, never predictable, this aptly titled novel illuminates dark passages both fictional and real * Kirkus * Proves she’s a writer at the top of her game, capable of crafting a well-plotted and complex story while remaining attuned to small internal motivations, along with intersectional and cultural liminalities, those edges between surf and sand where so much violence happens, as much to bodies as to hearts, minds, and homes * Library Journal * A major world writer… Choi has a profound gift * New York Times * What an outlandishly talented writer Choi is… Choi is a writer who can be trusted to have a plan, and she sews the narrative up with a conclusion that’s almost impossibly heartbreaking – about which the less said the better * Vulture * With Franzen-esque fastidiousness, Choi unpacks each character’s backstory, exposing vanities and delusions in a cool, caustic voice, a 21st century Emile Zola * Los Angeles Times * A historical events-driven door stopper that will leave readers guessing until (almost) the very end… A fictional reimagining of one of history’s darkest chapters and a sweeping, unsettling portrait of one family caught in the throes of change and torn apart by tragedy * San Francisco Chronicle * Choi’s elegant writing is evident in this ambitious tale … A propulsive story about family secrets and displacement * Boston Globe *