korea (north)

"A collection of searing and heart-wrenching stories by an anonymous North Korean writer who is still living in the country, The Accusation was secretly brought to South Korea in order to be published there and abroad. Seventeen publishers around the world are now preparing editions. This deeply moving and eye-opening literary work paints a powerful portrait of life under the North Korean regime. Set during the period of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il's leadership, the seven stories that make up"--Jacket flap.

Presents the memoir of a boy named Sungju who grew up in North Korea and, at the age of twelve, was forced to live on the streets and fend for himself after his parents disappeared.

Twelve-year-old Mia is on a five-day tour of North Korea with her older brother, Simon, and their father, Mark, an food aide worker, but she is scared because her father keeps sneaking off at night, and terrified that her brother's sullen, rebellious behavior (which has absolutely nothing to do with the Koreans) is going to get them in trouble--and things get much worse when she is pulled into a deadly political game that seeks to expose North Korean atrocities, and her father is arrested.

Twenty-six years ago, Shin Dong-hyuk was born inside Camp 14, one of five sprawling political prisons in the mountains of North Korea. This is the gripping, terrifying story of his escape from this no-exit prison-- to freedom in South Korea.

In 1997 the author escaped from North Korea at the age of seventeen. She went to China. Her mother's first words over the telephone to her lost daughter were 'don't come back'. The reprisals for all of them would have been lethal.

Explores the lives of ordinary North Koreans.

Yeonmi Park's family was loving and close-knit, but life in North Korea was brutal and practically medieval. Regularly without food, Park was led to believe that Kim Jong II, the country's dictator, could read her mind. After her father was imprisoned and tortured by the regime for trading on the black market, a risk he took in order to provide for his wife and two young daughters, the family was branded as criminals and forced to the cruel margins of society. Park and her mother were smuggled across the border into China after she suffered a botched appendectomy. By the time she and her mother made their way into South Korea two years later, Park had lost her childhood and nearly lost her life. Her father was dead and her sister was missing. Before this book, only her mother knew what really happened between the time they crossed the Yalu River into China and when they followed the stars through the frigid Gobi Desert to freedom. Park says "I convinced myself that a lot of what I had experienced never happened. I taught myself to forget the rest.".

"Every Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who is forced at age twelve to live on the streets and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly re-creates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, his 'brothers'; to be hungry and to fear arrest, imprisonment, and even execution. This riveting memoir allows young readers to learn about other cultures where freedoms they take for granted do not exist"--.

"In 1997 the author, aged 17, escaped North Korea for China. Her mother's first words over the telephone to her lost daughter were "don't come back". The reprisals for all of them would have been lethal"--Provided by publisher.

Memoir of Eunsun Kim chronicling her escape from the totalitarian rule of North Korea, having nearly died of starvation like her grandparents. Her mother, sister, and she begin planning their escape after her grandparents' deaths, beginning a journey that would take them nine years to complete.