This is Paradise!: My North Korean Childhood

by HyokKang (Author)

• Used

  Illustrated
  2007

  $3.25

  Hyok Kang was eighteen when he escaped from North Korea, a country locked away from the outside world. 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. 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. 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. All this is normal. After all, the propaganda North Koreans are fed by their government insists that compared to the rest of the world, this is paradise! 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'.

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $4.49

  THIS IS PARADISE! is both a shocking and moving portrayal of scenes of every day life in North Korea, a secretive and brutal nation. Hyok Kang writes of the public executions, of the labour camps and mines, the punishment for 'anti-social behaviour', the secret watching of Beijing television, and the spies everywhere who help enforce the regime by denouncing any deviations from the rigidly patrolled norm. And when the famine comes so too does death by starvation of friends and close ones, cannibalism, and political purge. All this is normal for Hyok Kang. After all, the propaganda North Koreans are fed by their government insists that compared to the rest of the world, this is paradise! Woven into this portrayal is the individual story of a boy who likes to draw - some of his accomplished illustrations are included in the book - and of his migration to China as an asylum seeker. This is his story of suffering and survival, and is a rare glimpse of a nation closed to the outside world, whose knowledge of what lies beyond its borders is censured and whose leaders are determined to prevent us from knowing their situation.