UNDER THE SAME SKY

A searing story of starvation and survival in North Korea. It's a story of a child who had no way out and yet found one. Completely alone without any means of survival, in constant competition with other desperate orphans for the same stolen scraps of food, Joseph Kim made a miraculous journey to America. In the spirit of international bestsellers such as ESCAPE FROM CAMP 14 and A LONG WAY GONE, the story of Joseph Kim offers hope, inspiration and a heart-stopping narrative.

Inside the hidden and mysterious world of North Korea, Joseph Kim lived a young boy’s normal life until he was five. Then disaster struck: the first wave of the Great Famine, a long, terrible ordeal that killed millions, including his father, and sent others, like his mother and only sister, on desperate escape routes into China. Alone on the streets, Joseph learned to beg and steal. He had nothing but a street-hardened survival instinct. Finally, in desperation, he too crossed a frozen river to escape to China.

There a kindly Christian woman took him in, kept him hidden from the authorities, and gave him hope. Soon, through an underground network of activists, he was spirited to the American consulate, and became one of just a handful of North Koreans to be brought to the U.S. as refugees. Joseph knew no English and had never been a good student. Yet the kindness of his foster family changed his life. He turned a new leaf, became a dedicated student, mastered English, and made it to college, where he is now thriving thanks to his faith and inner strength.

Under the Same Sky is an unforgettable story of suffering and redemption.

JOSEPH KIM was born in North Korean in 1990. In 2007 he came to the United States where he completed high school. He is currently a college student in New York City. Joseph Kim’s extraordinary TED talk has been viewed over 1.2 million times. STEPHAN TALTY is a widely published journalist who has contributed to the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Men’s Journal, Time Out New York, Details, and many other publications. He is the author of Escape from the Land of Snows, the best-selling Empire of Blue Water, The Illustrious Dead, and Mulatto America. Talty's work as a ghostwriter resulted most recently in the New York Times bestseller A CAPTAIN’S DUTY - called "fascinating" and "suspenseful" by PW in a starred review - which has been made into a Columbia Pictures forthcoming film “Captain Phillips”, starring Tom Hanks.