Robert S. Boynton

A collection of interviews and dialogues with eighteen leading nonfiction writers sheds new light on the ways in which the authors perfect their craft, as well as how they conduct interviews, gather information, and decide on subjects.

Conversations On Craft With America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft

The New New Journalism

A bizarre, little-known tale about the most secretive culture on earth For decades, North Korea denied any part in the disappearance of dozens of Japanese citizens from Japan’s coastal towns and cities in the late 1970s. But in 2002, with his country on the brink of collapse, Kim Jong-il admitted to the kidnapping of thirteen people and returned five of them in hopes of receiving Japanese aid. As part of a global espionage project, the regime had attempted to reeducate these abductees and make them spy on its behalf. When the scheme faltered, the captives were forced to teach Japanese to North Korean spies and make lives for themselves, marrying, having children, and posing as North Korean civilians in guarded communities known as “Invitation-Only Zones”—the fiction being that they were exclusive enclaves, not prisons. From the moment Robert S. Boynton saw a photograph of these men and women, he became obsessed with their story. Torn from their homes as young adults, living for a quarter century in a strange and hostile country, they were returned with little more than an apology from the secretive regime. In The Invitation-Only Zone, Boynton untangles the bizarre logic behind the abductions. Drawing on extensive interviews with the abductees, Boynton reconstructs the story of their lives inside North Korea and ponders the existential toll the episode has had on them, and on Japan itself. He speaks with nationalists, spies, defectors, diplomats, abductees, and even crab fishermen, exploring the cultural and racial tensions between Korea and Japan that have festered for more than a century. A deeply reported, thoroughly researched book, The Invitation-Only Zone is a riveting story of East Asian politics and of the tragic human consequences of North Korea’s zealous attempt to remain relevant in the modern world.

The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project

The Invitation-Only Zone

En la década de los setenta, Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese y otros escritores estadounidenses impulsaron el llamado Nuevo Periodismo, movimiento que revolucionó el género periodístico al situarlo al nivel de la mejor literatura, tanto por las audaces técnicas narrativas empleadas como por la novedosa forma de explorar los temas y los personajes. Cuarenta años después, Robert S. Boynton define en este libro lo que él denomina el «nuevo Nuevo Periodismo», y lo hace a través de una serie de conversaciones con diecinueve profesionales cuya labor continúa y actualiza el legado de sus predecesores. Estos «nuevos nuevos periodistas» son ante todo reporteros que se implican a fondo en sus investigaciones, como Ted Conover, que vivió durante meses como un vagabundo; Jon Krakauer, que acompañó una expedición al Everest de funesto desenlace; o Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, que dedicó casi diez años a escribir un reportaje sobre una familia del Bronx. Estrategias de inmersión que ilustran el análisis de los problemas más candentes de la actualidad y le dan una dimensión real. Las entrevistas recogidas en El nuevo Nuevo Periodismo revelan los métodos, las fuentes de inspiración, los objetivos y las inquietudes de un grupo de periodistas que han infundido nueva fuerza a una profesión apasionante y más necesaria que nunca.

Robert S. Boynton

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