Europe is currently dealing with an unprecedented flow of human beings escaping conflict, hunger and political injustice. In Asia there is another flow of refugees undertaking an even deadlier journey from North Korea via China and Mongolia to reach the South - and freedom. It's an unsparing account of her North Korean life, escape with her mother across the river to China only to be faced with assault and rape with a price on their head as valuable merchandise in a country with a shortage of marriagable women. This book is Yeonmi Parks's own story but it also shows us the personal suffering that refugees face and, especially for North Koreans, the education needed to cope with life on the other side of the divide. One of the many dreadful images the book left me is beleagured North Korean medics and teachers bribing their patients in order that they might eat, images far indeed from the golden dawn of the North Korean wonderland.
Like for Like Reading
Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea, Barbara Demick
Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees, Caroline Moorehead
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
| Recommendations: |
'I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.' Yeonmi Park was not dreaming of freedom when she escaped from North Korea.
She didn't even know what it meant to be free. All she knew was that she was running for her life, that if she and her family stayed behind they would die - from starvation, or disease, or even execution. This book is the story of Park's struggle to survive in the darkest, most repressive country on earth; her harrowing escape through China's underworld of smugglers and human traffickers; and then her escape from China across the Gobi desert to Mongolia, with only the stars to guide her way, and from there to South Korea and at last to freedom; and finally her emergence as a leading human rights activist - all before her 21st birthday.
In Order to Live A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, Non-Fiction Books of the Month, eBooks of the Month, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Recommendations
In Order to Live A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom is available in Paperback, Hardback
In Order to Live A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom was written by Yeonmi Park and published by Penguin Books Ltd
In Order to Live A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom has 288 pages
£10.79
