Bandi "The Accusation"

Bandi (반디) "The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea" (Korean: 고발/Gobal) - 2014

Seven short stories tell us about the life in North Korea. Seven individual stories about seven people and their families. We can imagine that life in such a closed-off dictatorship cannot be easy but the author gives us a good view over people in different kind of situations. And the conditions are just horrible for everyone.

A very impressive book. A highly important book. I am not a fan of short stories usually but this is definitely worth reading. Both the author and the person who smuggled the notes out of the country risked their lives to bring it to us, we should not disappoint them.

From the back cover:

"In 1989, a North Korean dissident writer, known to us only by the pseudonym Bandi, began to write a series of stories about life under Kim Il-sung's totalitarian regime. Smuggled out of North Korea and set for publication around the world in 2017, The Accusation provides a unique and shocking window on this most secretive of countries. Bandi's profound, deeply moving, vividly characterised stories tell of ordinary men and women facing the terrible absurdity of daily life in North Korea: a factory supervisor caught between loyalty to an old friend and loyalty to the Party; a woman struggling to feed her husband through the great famine; the staunch Party man whose actor son reveals to him the absurd theatre of their reality; the mother raising her child in a world where the all-pervasive propaganda is the very stuff of childhood nightmare. The Accusation is a heartbreaking portrayal of the realities of life in North Korea. It is also a reminder that humanity can sustain hope even in the most desperate of circumstances - and that the courage of free thought has a power far beyond those seek to suppress it."

Mitchell, David "Cloud Atlas"

Mitchell, David "Cloud Atlas" - 2004

An interesting book. Quite different from anything I've read before. A mixture of a few genres I like and others that I'm not so keen on. Imagine Robert Louis Stevenson, Daniel Defoe, the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, Michael Crighton, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, H.G. Wells, George Orwell, Douglas Adams and Margaret Atwood got together to write one continuous story going from any of their times and genres to the next. That's about what the result would be. Really, very interesting and hard to describe.

It's almost like several short stories in one book, only they do belong to each other. The closest type of book I have ever read must be "If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller" (Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore) by Italo Calvino although that is still quite a different story.

I think you have to like dystopian literature, otherwise this might not be for you but apart from that, the writing is quite captivating. We start in the past, get to know the protagonists and their stories, move into the future and then go back to see the end of the different stories. In short: quite fascinating.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2026.

From the back cover:

"Six interlocking lives - one amazing adventure. In a narrative that circles the globe and reaches from the 19th century to a post-apocalyptic future, Cloud Atlas erases the boundaries of time, genre and language to offer an enthralling vision of humanity's will to power, and where it will lead us."

And another one:

"A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified 'dinery server' on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation -- the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.

In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’ s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us."

Johnson, Adam "The Orphan Master's Son"

Johnson, Adam "The Orphan Master's Son" - 2012

A hard book to read. And not just because of the subject. Adam Johnson switches narrators. Not the way Wilkie Collins switches narrators, he even switches the characters, they become someone completely different and then they are themselves again. You never know who is who.

However, it is still worth reading this book. The insight it gives into North Korean life is immense. And the reason the book is so confusing is probably because this sort of life is so confusing. Pak Jun Do grows up in an orphanage, even though he still has his father but he is the orphan master. Jun Do ("John Doe" in Korean) joins the military and from there his way is as weird as the whole book.  He  is sent on kidnapping missions to Japan as well as diplomatic trips to Texas, then he takes over the place of an important politician and is married to that person's wife.

The further you get into the book, the more you realize how disturbing life in a dictatorship can be. I remember a trip to a castle in my school years where we were shown the torture chambers with the remark that this kind of thing doesn't happen anymore. Well, if you read this book (or other books about countries like this), you are amazed at how many ways men can find to mistreat and torture other human beings. It is incredible.

So, not a book for the light-hearted and not a book you wish to read in a day or two, hardly any page that is not grasping at your belief in the goodness of human nature, hardly a page where you can gather some hope for the poor souls who have to live in these circumstances.

Of course, the author has never lived in North Korea, only visited it once and that was probably not a visit where he could freely roam and talk to just anybody, so I guess we have to rely on what research he did in any other way. I still believe that this is not purely fiction.

From the back cover:

"An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, 'The Orphan Master’s Son' follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother - a singer 'stolen' to Pyongyang - and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.

Considering himself 'a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,' Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress 'so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.'

Part breathless thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, 'The Orphan Master’s Son' is also a riveting portrait of a world heretofore hidden from view: a North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. A towering literary achievement, 'The Orphan Master’s Son' ushers Adam Johnson into the small group of today’s greatest writers."

Adam Johnson received the Pulitzer Prize for "The Orphan Master's Son" in 2013. 

Ling, Laura & Lisa "Somewhere Inside"

Ling, Laura & Ling, Lisa "Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home" - 2010

In our international book club, we always try to read books from different parts of this world and usually quite enjoy discussing novels or non-fiction literature about parts of this world we haven't visited. This was the reason, we picked up this story. A journalist, Laura Ling, gets captured in North Korea and gets sentenced to twelve years of hard labour. Meanwhile, her sister Lisa, also a journalist in the States, tries to get her released. The book tells both sides, inside and outside of North Korea.

We expected to have more background information about North Korea, but too much name-dropping was going on, we had the feeling they wanted to show the world how important they are.

The whole team had been visiting China with a tourist visa, we thought they  acted very irresponsible, naïve, the guide was crooked, they should have seen it, and one of their colleagues just disappeared and left them alone. During the whole time, they came up with excuses. There should have been fines placed on them when they returned. Many reporters are imprisoned who stick to the rules, they can't call on former presidents to get them out of their predicament.

We want to find a book by a North Korean defector.

Most of us had been excited about the topic but were hugely disappointed, we didn't learn anything new, had hoped for more insight.

The whole story, the whole recollection was very repetitive. Laura did not seem emotional enough about her captivity, she seemed very detached from the story, we would have thought that a journalist could write better and are of the opinion that they only wrote the book to make money. We missed dates, at times you were not sure who was where at what time, dates would have helped.

We were also shocked that journalists couldn't write a book that takes you in, especially on a subject like this and that you could get more information. And what about the people left behind? Names of the guards were mentioned, for example. Do they realize the consequences they will face? The question came up what the US had to pay or promise North Korea for their release. We also imagined that they would have been humble after such an experience and just shut up.

The only good part was that some of us said this is an opportunity to get more interested in stories about North Korea. E.g., the question was raised whether it is good to trade with nations who don't obey human rights. Of course, that is always a tough question, it has its pros and cons.

Our final impression was that here were two spoilt young Americans who have everything put in front of them on a silver platter. They can do whatever they want and God and the president will help. No realistic view of the world. If you don't respect the law, the law doesn't protect you anymore.

We discussed this in our book club in October 2012.

From the back cover:

"Somewhere Inside is the electrifying, never-before-told story of Laura Ling’s capture by the North Koreans in March 2009, and the efforts of her sister, journalist Lisa Ling, to secure Laura’s release by former President Bill Clinton. This riveting true account of the first ever trial of an American citizen in North Korea’s highest court carries readers deep inside the world’s most secretive nation while it poignantly explores the powerful, inspiring bonds of sisterly love. "