http://s14/mw690/3f645efa4d2740bab552d&690

小说讲述一个“南遣间谍”潜伏二十年后突然接到命令，必须在二十四小时内返回述职的故事。主人公名叫金基荣，1984年在他二十二岁时成为被派往韩国的间谍。由于人事更迭、时光变迁，他似乎被人彻底遗忘，从此过起平凡小市民的生活。可是在二十年后的2005年的某个早晨，正在办公室上班的金基荣突然接到一封可疑邮件，要求他在一天之内清理全部工作，回归平壤。二十余年苦心经营的全部生活和事业，他必须抛弃，独自离开……作家通过这个人物象征性地展示了韩国社会和个体生活在过往二十年间的深刻变化。

http://s1/mw690/3f645efa4d273f98486a0&690

《光之帝国》在美国出版时被译为《Your Republic Is Calling You》（共和国在呼唤你），欧美文学界对金英夏的《光的帝国》予以热切关注。去年初在法国宣传时，曾受到法国《世界报》等主要媒体的关注，《解放报》还对金英夏进行了专访，《华尔街日报》也对该作品进行了大篇幅的介绍。

"The romantic belief is that art can either familiarize the strange or estrange the familiar. Now here's a guy who can do both at the same time. Young-ha Kim, very much like his protagonist, is a spy. He is spying on humanity; the secret information he provides is invaluable."

—埃特加尔·凯雷特（Etgar Keret, author of The Nimrod Flipout）

"What a ride! Young-ha Kim is clearly a writer to watch out for. Your Republic Is Calling You promises to be the breakout book from Korea. Through his compelling narration of events happening in a single day, he leads us into the heart and soul of modern Korea and tells us and what it means to be human in a world bristling with borders. I cannot praise it enough."

—维卡斯·史瓦卢普（Vikas Swarup, author of Slumdog Millionaire）

"Your Republic Is Calling You is that rare thing, a novel that is simultaneously suspenseful and meditative, an intriguingly provocative novel about freedom, duty, and inevitability. This highly-charged novel kept me up half the night, turning pages; I spent the other half wide awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking and thinking about it." —Dean Bakopoulos, author of Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon