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Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Paperback
AnthropologyAsian American StudiesKorean History
Publisher Price: $20.00
ISBN13: 9780385523912
Publisher: Random House
Published: Sep 21 2010
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.55
Height: 0.70 Width: 5.10 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Awards: National Book Awards
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD - FINALIST FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD WINNER OF WINNERS AWARD
In this landmark addition to the literature of totalitarianism, 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 (the father of Kim Jong-un), 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 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. She 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.
Praise for Nothing to Envy
Provocative . . . offers extensive evidence of the author's deep knowledge of this country while keeping its sights firmly on individual stories and human details.--The New York Times
Deeply moving . . . The personal stories are related with novelistic detail.--The Wall Street Journal
A tour de force of meticulous reporting.--The New York Review of Books
Excellent . . . humanizes a downtrodden, long-suffering people whose individual lives, hopes and dreams are so little known abroad.--San Francisco Chronicle
The narrow boundaries of our knowledge have expanded radically with the publication of Nothing to Envy. . . . Elegantly structured and written, [it] is a groundbreaking work of literary nonfiction.--John Delury, Slate
At times a page-turner, at others an intimate study in totalitarian psychology.--The Philadelphia Inquirer
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