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Flashlight

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Flashlight

By: Susan Choi
Narrated by: Eunice Wong
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025**

A thrilling, globe-spanning novel that mines questions of memory, language, identity and family.

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 émigré, 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.

Flashlight is a masterpiece that moves between the post-war Korean immigrant community in Japan, to suburban America, and the North Korean regime, to tell the astonishing story of one family swept up in the tides of twentieth century history.

'Ferociously smart and full of surprises, Flashlight is thrilling to the last' ELEANOR CATTON

'Instantly bewitching... a writer at the height of her spectacular powers' JENNIFER EGAN

'A brilliant feat of storytelling, both intimate and sweeping... an immersive, addictive story' ANGIE KIM

© Susan Choi 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Genre Fiction Literary Fiction United States World Literature Imperial Japan

Critic Reviews

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)
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)
All stars
Most relevant
Loved everything about it except the persistently downward intonation of the otherwise excellent narrator. Eventually got used it.
Absolute masterpiece of a book. Don’t hesitate! Read it!

Extraordinary story beautifully written

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Such unlikeable characters but that’s the point
She tells the story of the history of Korea/Japan with such grace
Absolutely loved

A 5 star read for me

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A vividly imagined complex story, distinct characters, each with their own issues and baggage, leading to a deeply satisfying read.
Another well deserved Booker short list nominee for 2025. This is one of my two favorites from the list.
I highly recommend this for anyone looking for engaging fiction aimed at adults.

Deeply satisfying

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Great story. Love Anne - think she's a great character, good twists for Serks tale, the daughter's depiction is spot on!

Booker prize worthy

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While I found the antipathetical nature of the three lead characters difficult to engage with initially, at some point that switches and I was drawn in to their moving story. Stick with it.

Slowish start but stick with it

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The tale is over long, the cultural landscapes fascinating. Each of the three unlikeable central family members is densely drawn, as are the peripheral characters.
But the reader's tone is a monotonous sneer. The hours of storytelling were thus for me like wading through sand on the Japanese beach at the centre of the mystery.

intriguing tale swamped by narration

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