Mother-daughter stories aren't always my thing, but I somehow ended up reading three (!) recent memoirs (momoirs?) about just that. One of them you've certainly already heard of: It seems like every year there's one memoir that blows up and is absolutely everywhere (think Educated) and last year it was Michelle Zauner's Crying in H... Continue Reading →
A Rare Biography of Ruthless, Enigmatic North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un
Book review: The Great Successor, by Anna Fifield (Amazon / Book Depository) I didn't imagine a book about Kim Jong Un would be an unputdownable page-turner, but here we are. I'm not sure anything I write about The Great Successor is going to do it justice as it's tough to encapsulate, but I'll try. Kim Jong Un... Continue Reading →
Inside the North Korean Gulag
Image of Workers' Party of Korea Monument in Pyongyang by Mannen av börd, edited by Entheta (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons Book review: The Aquariums of Pyongyang, by Kang Chol-Hwan, and Pierre Rigoulot (Amazon / Book Depository) During the first days of my detention, I met a kid who wore... Continue Reading →
Heartbreaking, Illuminating North Korean Defector’s Memoir that Lingers
Book review: A River in Darkness, by Masaji Ishikawa (Amazon) What do I remember of that night? The night I escaped from North Korea? There are so many things that I don't remember, that I've put out of my mind forever...But I'll tell you what I do recall. It's drizzling. But soon the drizzle turns... Continue Reading →
We Have Nothing to Envy in the World
Book review: Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick Amazon "In the futuristic dystopia imagined in 1984, George Orwell wrote of a world where the only color to be found was in the propaganda posters. Such is the case in North Korea." I saw this book mentioned in an article about David Sedaris' special habit when going... Continue Reading →