Award-winning journalist Barbara Demick follows the lives of six North Korean citizens over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and a devastating famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, where displays of affection are punished, informants are rewarded, and an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life. Demick takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors, and through meticulous and sensitive reporting we see her subjects fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we witness their profound, life-altering disillusionment with the government and their realization that, rather than providing them with lives of abundance, their country has betrayed them.
1 comment:
I really enjoyed reading this book. There was so much that I didn't know. My favorite part were the pictures especially the satellite view of North and South Korea at night. My parents were on a mission to South Korea in the 90's. I remember there being an especially scary time between the two countries and the US when they were there.
"It is axiomatic that one death is a tragedy, a thousand is a statistic." page 132
"North Korea is not an undeveloped country; it is a country that has fallen out of the developed world." page 4
"Guilt and shame are the common denominators among North Korean defectors; many hate themselves for what they had to do to survive." p. 271
"But now she couldn't deny what was staring her plainly in the face: dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea." p 220
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