Literary Fiction — The Book Roads

The Young Will Remember

Eve J. Chung

In the frozen winter of 1950, a plane carrying Chinese American journalist Ellie Chang is shot down over North Korea. Stranded behind enemy lines during the Korean War, Ellie fears she will never see her family again—until a mysterious woman steps forward and claims her as her missing daughter. The woman, who calls herself Emma, has spent years searching for her own child, lost in the aftermath of an earlier war. Although she knows Ellie is not her daughter, she refuses to leave another woman’s child to die. Taken in by Emma and a pastor’s family, Ellie must navigate a dangerous landscape where trust is scarce and survival depends on unlikely alliances. As American bombing intensifies, the group begins a perilous journey south. Along the way, their lives become entwined with the fate of Emma’s missing daughter and the buried traumas of the past. Through these women, Eve J. Chung reveals the human cost of war beyond the battlefield: the families torn apart, the lives forgotten by history, and the extraordinary courage required to protect one another. Moving and deeply compassionate, The Young Will Remember explores motherhood, sacrifice, and the bonds that can form between strangers amid unimaginable suffering.

North Korea South Korea 2026