In Order To Live
A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
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Beschreibung des Verlags
'I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.'
Yeonmi Park was not dreaming of freedom when she escaped from North Korea. She didn't even know what it meant to be free. All she knew was that she was running for her life, that if she and her family stayed behind they would die - from starvation, or disease, or even execution.
This book is the story of Park's struggle to survive in the darkest, most repressive country on earth; her harrowing escape through China's underworld of smugglers and human traffickers; and then her escape from China across the Gobi desert to Mongolia, with only the stars to guide her way, and from there to South Korea and at last to freedom; and finally her emergence as a leading human rights activist - all before her 21st birthday.
'Clear-eyed and devastating' Observer
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 2007, the thirteen-year-old malnourished Park and her mother fled to China from North Korea. Park skillfully details the total mind control, fear and starvation which constitute the nightmarish daily life under North Korea's Kim dynasty. Park and her mother were also searching for her older sister, who escaped the country just a few days earlier. Park's narrative chronicles the downfall of her relatively prosperous family following her father's arrest and imprisonment for trading on the black market. Soon after, the family began its descent into starvation. Once in China, the pair, thinking they had reached freedom or at least food, instead realized they were now victims of human trafficking. "We had come to a bad place, maybe even worse than the one we had left." Eventually Park finds her way across Mongolia to South Korea. Following a painful period of adjustment to a new life, Park finds her footing. She gets her GED, she attends university, and even becomes a television celebrity on a talk and talent show featuring North Korean defectors. Now a leading human rights advocate, Park's remarkable and inspiring story shines a light on a country whose inhabitants live in misery beyond comprehension. Park's important memoir showcases the strength of the human spirit and one young woman's incredible determination to never be hungry again.
