HWANG SOK-YONG is the author of nine works of fiction that have been bestsellers and prize-winners in his native Korea. His work, which grapples with the troubled history of his divided country, has been the cause of his imprisonment, his exile, and the rare achievement of a wide international readership and now sells hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of copies in his native Korea.

A novel of the black markets of the South Vietnamese city of Da Nang during the Vietnam War, based on the author's experiences as a self-described South Korean mercenary on the side of the South Vietnamese, this is a Vietnam War novel like no other, truly one that sees the war from all sides. Scenes of battle are breathtakingly well told. The plot is thick with intrigue and complex subplots. But ultimately The Shadow of Arms is a novel of the human condition rather than of the exploits and losses of one side or the other in war.