Masaji Ishikawa

During the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula (1910-1945), Koreans were conscripted as laborers or emigrated to Japan in search of jobs after losing their land to the Japanese. By 1945 two million Koreans lived in Japan. These Zainichi found conditions to be little better for them in Japan, due to intense discrimination. Beginning in 1956, the Japanese Red Cross began repatriating ethnic Koreans to North Korea. The Communists wanted labor, and the Japanese wanted to get rid of a show more potential source of social unrest. The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan convinced many that life in North Korea would be a paradise of socialist humanitarianism and that returnees would be home again (despite the fact that most were from the southern part of Korea). Between 1960 and 1961 alone, 70,000 Zainichi were shipped to North Korea. Masaji Ishikawa was one of those.

Ishikawa's father was Zainichi, but his mother was Japanese. He was thirteen years old when he left Japan with his parents and two younger sisters. From the moment they landed in North Korea, however, they learned that everything they had been told was a lie. North Korea was far from paradise, and, equally devastating, the Zainichi were treated as badly in North Korea as they had been in Japan. His family was ostracized for being Japanese, and from the moment they arrived, they never had enough food. When Kim Il-Sung died in 1994 and his inept son took over, hunger became starvation. In 1996, Ishikawa decided that the only hope for his family to survive was if he escaped back to Japan, got a job, and sent them money until he could bring them to Japan as well.

I found this memoir mesmerizing from his descriptions of life in 1950s Japan to his life under the harsh North Korean regime to his reception after his escape. His writing is straightforward and plain, but his words pack a punch. It's not an easy book to read as things go from bad to worse, but it is invaluable for it's depictions of the Zainichi in North Korea. show less

I'm not crying, you're crying.

This was probably the best book I read so far this year.
It gripped me from the very first page and I found myself so touched by the story and so attached to the characters and their fate.

The Title of the book says "One Man's Escape from North Korea", yet the story is about much more.
A River in Darkness talks about this man's life; first in Japan, then when he and his family were taken 'back' to "Heaven on earth", or so they were told until they were slapped by show more the harsh truth. The book then delves into his life in North Korea and all the hardships he goes through while there, then eventually his escape from there.

It was so heartbreaking and raw and full of emotion. I felt every word of it, I cried multiple times while reading this book. To think there are people out there who suffer that much and don't have even the most basic rights is shattering.

All in all this was such a wonderful, eye-opening read and I can't possibly give it justice no matter how many words I write in this review. So I'll just say GO READ IT show less

It is deeply heartbreaking to read this book. This is the memoirs of a man who was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and Korean father. When he was a young teenager, his father was convinced to take his family to North Korea by a group giving false promises of good work for the father and free education for the children. All of the promises were false.

Life in North Korea was terribly difficult for many reasons, but mostly due to the lack of freedom and inability for an average person whose show more was not a party member to make a living and provide for a family. We in the western world don't often get glimpses of what is truly going on in such countries as North Korea. Reading this book made me empathize with refugees, the poverty-stricken, the unemployed, and those whose countries lack freedom for individual rights and freedom from surveillance. It also makes me increasingly uneasy about what can happen anywhere at any time.

One wishes for a good outcome for a person who suffered as much as the author did, but such an outcome is not ensured. This is a riveting read, but very depressing on a human level. Where is compassion for other human beings? show less

This is a really hard read. It feels like it should be dystopian fiction. It feels like it should have a happy ending. It feels like this can't possibly be real. It feels like a bleaker 1984 retelling.

But the truth of it is that this is not Orwell. This is the darkness that can happen when people in control lose their humanity. And while the ending is better than it was, it is not happy. It is barely even hopeful. I really, really hope that many people read this and others like it so that we show more can try to prevent similar horrors from happening in the future. show less