The World Is Bigger Now
An American Journalist's Release from Captivity in North Korea . . . A Remarkable Story of Faith, Family, and Forgiveness
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4.6 • 13 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
For the first time, Euna Lee—the young wife, mother, and film editor detained in North Korea—tells a harrowing, but ultimately inspiring, story of survival and faith in one of the most isolated parts of the world.
On March 17, 2009, Lee and her Current TV colleague Laura Ling were working on a documentary about the desperate lives of North Koreans fleeing their homeland for a chance at freedom when they were violently apprehended by North Korean soldiers. For nearly five months they remained detained while friends and family in the United States were given little information about their status or conditions. For Lee, detention would prove especially harrowing. Imprisoned just 112 miles from where she was born and where her parents still live in Seoul, South Korea, she was branded as a betrayer of her Korean blood by her North Korean captors. After representing herself in her trial before North Korea’s highest court, she received a sentence of twelve years of hard labor in the country’s notorious prison camps, leading her to fear she might not ever see her husband and daughter again.
The World Is Bigger Now draws us deep into Euna Lee’s life before and after this experience: what led to her arrival in North Korea, her efforts to survive the agonizing months of detainment, and how she and her fellow captive, Ling, were finally released thanks to the efforts of many individuals, including Bill Clinton. Lee explains in unforgettable detail what it was like to lose, and then miraculously regain, life as she knew it.
The World Is Bigger Now is the story of faith and love and Euna Lee’s personal
conviction that God will sustain and protect us, even in our darkest hours.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this stunning first book, film editor Lee (for Current TV, the cable network cofounded by Al Gore) recounts the months she spent in a North Korean prison during the spring and summer of 2009. Lee and her coworker, Laura Ling, were arrested for entering North Korea from China while working on a documentary chronicling the dreadful privations faced by North Korean defectors once they reached China, conditions especially harsh for women, as many were sold into the sex trade or forced into marriage. Lee discusses in detail the time she and Ling spent in captivity, divulging the scare tactics employed by the guards, like all-day interrogations in an attempt to gain "suitable" confessions. Maintaining her sanity by thinking constantly of her family and praying in secret, Lee rises above illness and a looming 14-year prison sentence to paint a lucid self-portrait.
Customer Reviews
Wonderful Read!
What an ordeal! The North Korean people have always weighed heavy on my heart and I pray for them often. This book allows us to peep into an area we know so little about. Clearly, it was Our Savior who embraced her in this storm and pulled her out (sorry Officer Lee).