BLAME IT ON DISNEY’S Mulan or on Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, but the appetite for fiction set in the Far East has never been stronger.

Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard, about a 12-century Korean, is a worthy addition. Tree-ear is an orphan who lives under a bridge with the one-legged Crane-man who has looked after him since he was a baby. They hunt for food in rubbish heaps, and Crane-man teaches the boy to be wise and honest, for “work gives a man dignity, stealing takes it away”. But how can Tree-ear gain work when he has no relations?

He would love to learn from Min, the master potter of Ch’ulp’o. The village is famous for its delicate celadon ware, and although Min is slow and self-criticial to the point of constantly destroying his own work, he is the best. When Tree-ear is discovered spying on his hero, he is offered three days’ work in compensation for the box that he inadvertently breaks. The days stretch into a menial job chopping and hauling wood, and trust slowly develops. Although the master potter is impatient and critical, his childless wife is kind and soon Tree-ear and Crane-man have enough food for the first time. Then, news comes that the Emperor is to commission new pottery for his palace. Tree-ear’s master must send an example of his work, and the only person to be trusted is the beggar boy. Two vases, packed in straw, must be carried over the bandit-infested mountains. How can he succeed?

This novel has a bleak, low-key opening that may put off impatient children, but an extraordinarily moving and delightful tale develops. Park won the Newberry Medal for other novels about the Korean identity, but this is as much about the patience and pain involved in creating a work of art as Philip Pullman’s classic The Firework-Maker’s Daughter. Park describes how Min throws, sculpts and decorates his vases, making the reader share in the pleasure of an incised chrysanthemum, a beautiful glaze and the unique touch that makes the imperial emissary recognise a master’s unmistakable work. Every piece described in the book actually exists; in reminding us of the ravishing artistry of the Korean people, (now transferred to film, as the just-opened ICA festival Brilliant Korea shows), Parks also acquaints us with their suffering at the hands of Japanese and Chinese invaders, who prized Korean celadon so much that they sacked tombs to steal it.

A Single Shard is also about people — who, as Crane-man warns the boy, “are the greatest danger. But it will also be people to whom you must turn if ever you are in need of aid.” Park’s humble heroes remind us that courage comes in unexpected forms. The single shard that the boy rescues of his master's work shows it to possess the “radiance of jade and clarity of water”. This intense, brilliant novel has the same quality.

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