The death of dictator Kim Jong-Il has cast all eyes on North Korea, a country without literature or freedom or truth.

Had she never been hungry enough to eat a flower? Did she not know that you could eat daisies, daylilies, pansies, and marigolds? That hungry enough, a person could consume the bright faces of violas, even the stems of dandelions and the bitter hips of roses?

All the lessons you need to learn in life, he said, will be taught to you by your enemy.

Today, tomorrow," she said. "A day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before it have gone out.

A good story feels both surprising and inevitable, fresh and familiar.

Like putting a name to my problems would solve anything

The next day, she was silent. For breakfast, she murdered an onion and served it raw.