When I was looking for books from North Korea for the Read The World challenge, I was quite surprised I could only find two actually by North Koreans. "About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.Or to give it its full, bookshop-friendly title: This is Paradise! My North Korean Childhood, written by Hyok Kang with the French journalist Philippe Grangereau, and translated by Shaun Whiteside. Deborah DonovanĬopyright © American Library Association.
They lived like "hunted animals" for four years in China, always fearing deportation, until finally reaching South Korea, where Hyok was able to share, in both words and drawings, his remarkable saga. Since UN rations were siphoned off by party members, and leaves, grass, bark, and grasshoppers became the only available food for the masses, Hyok recalls that all but 8 or 9 of his 35 classmates had starved to death before he and his family fled.
It was only when faced with death by starvation that the family ultimately made the decision to escape. Hyok Kang's story of a childhood spent in North Korea during the repressive regime of Kim Jong Il provides a rare window into the "most closed state in the world." Thirteen when he and his parents escaped to China in 1998, Hyok paints a mind-boggling picture of long school days followed by hours of farmwork, routine executions viewed by hundreds, and the "nocturnal disappearances" of friends and neighbors-the "unfaithful" who were sent away to penal colonies. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Hyok Kang's childhood and courageous escape through China Vietnam and Cambodia to South Korea is a remarkable story that goes to the heart of a nation living under a disturbing delusion of 'paradise'. After all, the propaganda North Koreans are fed by their government insists that compared to the rest of the world, this is paradise! When the famine comes so too does death by starvation of friends and close ones, and Hyok Kang watches as his classmates drop out of school one by one, too weak to attend. His shocking and moving portrayal bears witness to this spirited young boy's resilience and survival in a society forced to operate under the shadow of labour camps, public executions and the deception of UN representatives by Korean officials. This personal, illustrated account of school days in a rigidly communist institution and everyday life with his family and community provides a rare glimpse of this secretive nation.
Hyok Kang was eighteen when he escaped from North Korea, a country locked away from the outside world.
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