Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An eye-opening account of life inside North Korea—a closed world of increasing global importance—hailed as a “tour de force of meticulous reporting” (The New York Review of Books)
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD WINNER OF WINNERS AWARD • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY
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.
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Community Reviews
Utterly heartbreaking. I honestly don't think I can do this book justice by reviewing it - read the book and then talk to me about it. I do want to say that I am very aware of how incredibly difficult it is to distinguish between propaganda and the truth. Not just from North Korea either; I have a feeling there is a lot of smoke and mirrors happening on our side as well.
Informative and, in many ways, interesting, though a bit dry and repetitive. I found myself often nodding and thinking, "Yes, this was written by a journalist." The narrative, at times intriguing, was stretched out over-long and made bland by a stilted and choppy style. That, unfortunately, took away from my enjoyment of peering into such an isolated and backwards country. I appreciated the interweaving of various viewpoints - life in small villages and life in the capitol city of Pyongyang - to give a perspective of how life was different depending on political and social standing. Ms. Demick's perceptions and insights, through these interviews with North Koreans, are insightful and at times shocking in that they demonstrates how many of these refugees of such an abusive, totalitarian, and uncaring state find it difficult to move beyond the propaganda and brainwashing. Again, enlightening and poignantly sad, its main deficiency is that it is too long for the level of editorial polish, becoming repetitive.
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