India, Oct. 2 -- From the 1970s through the 1980s, North Korean agents abducted several Japanese citizens who had accidentally stumbled upon their activities in Japan. The case of 13-year-old Megumi Yokota, kidnapped in 1977, is especially infamous. While the North Korean government acknowledged a handful of such kidnappings, the actual figure may run into hundreds.

"Unexplained disappearances" like that of Yokota's and disturbing "childhood memories of a trip to Japan" inspired Flashlight, Susan Choi's Booker-shortlisted novel. Initially written as a short story that was published in the New Yorker in 2020, the novel grew out of an exploration of the crippling feeling of never knowing the fate of someone you have lost.

"Disappearance d...