Blaine Harden

Shin Dong-hyuk is believed to be the only North Korean escapee to be born in a “total control camp.” His parents had been imprisoned there for the sins of their family members. And his parents were not a couple by choice. They both received the right to sleep together (5 times over many years) as a reward for good behavior. The author spent years interviewing and researching Shin’s story to ensure it was as close to the truth as possible, given some escapees’ tendency to lie. show more

Prisoners are conditioned from infancy in all the characteristics most people would find despicable, but that they learned in order to survive—most importantly to grovel and report everyone. To lie if it meant survival. Children are only loyal to the guards; they never learn the word love, or experience it. Shin’s escape and life are remarkable in every conceivable way, having to learn basic human emotions, manners, etc. He barely understood that his country had a “Dear Leader.” He called himself an animal learning to be human; it truly feels that way reading this account. This is a short, extremely eye-opening account. Highly recommended but beware trigger warnings of severe child abuse. show less

"There is no 'human rights issue' in this country, as everyone leads the most dignified and happy life." - North Korean Central News Agency, March 6, 2009

Shin Dong-hyuk was born and raised, inside Camp 14. It is one of five, immense prisons, located in the mountains of North Korea. At a tender age, he witnessed the execution of his mother and brother. This story reads like a nightmarish dystopian novel, loaded with brutal guards, hunger, mind-control, cruelty, deceptions but in many ways it show more is far worse, since it is reportedly true.
In his early twenties, Shin escapes the camp. The very first to do so and the narrative follows Shin as he makes his long difficult journey to freedom and his acclimation into “normal” society.
This is the 3rd book, I have read about North Korea, in the past year or so. The first was the stunning Nothing to Envy and the 2nd was the trippy fictional odyssey, The Orphan Master’s Son. This one is not as strong as that pair but it still fits in, just fine. show less

After reading the amazing Nothing To Envy by Barbara Demick, I discovered that there are actually quite a lot of accounts from North Korean escapees/defectors. This one sounded particularly interesting since it profiles such a different experience from the ordinary North Koreans followed in Nothing To Envy - the man featured here was born and lived in one of North Korea's notorious labor camps, "Camp 14", and is the only person born in a camp known to have escaped.

It's hard to imagine a show more life more isolated from the outside world. Even within the closed-off, repressive, and extremely poor country of North Korea the residents of the camps are isolated, utterly controlled, and extremely poor, hardly knowing a world outside of North Korea exists (and thus, ironically, less subject to the propaganda that most North Koreans are fed). Residents, including children, were routinely beaten (sometimes fatally) for minor offenses like stealing a few grains of corn or just because the guards were bored. One of Shin's earliest memories was of watching an execution of people caught trying to escape.

Shin tells the story of his life in the camp, watching his mother and elder brother executed for trying to escape and being tortured for suspected involvement. (He later says that he in fact informed on his relatives, attempting to save his own life, but that the teacher he reported them to did not pass along the source of the information.) Eventually he meets another prisoner, formerly from Pyongyang, whose stories motivate Shin to hatch a plan for escape.

The latter part of the book details the titular escape, from the camp and then from North Korea itself, and Shin's difficult attempts to function in a normal society, when he lacked not only any practical skills for holding a job or living on his own but also basic ability to trust anyone - having never trusted or been trusted, cared about anyone or been cared about, he was extremely paranoid and suffering from PTSD.

There's a reason for my careful choice of language above, of what the book talks about and the stories that Shin tells. Harden mentions that Shin had for a long time not told about his role in his mother's death, and discusses the difficulty of fact-checking anything from inside North Korea and the impossibility of doing so in this case. As I was in the middle of reading this book, I saw an article on NPR saying that Shin had again changed his story, more substantially - that much of his childhood had been spent in a different, less brutal camp, and that he had made an earlier escape attempt and been captured (which was what prompted the torture). I'm not actually surprised by this, and it doesn't change my opinion of the book much - Shin had already changed his story, he had never been taught to value honesty or trust, so why should readers expect this account to be entirely trustworthy? It's a compelling story nonetheless; I'm glad I know where some of the holes are, though. show less

I'm giving it 5 stars because honest reporting about modern-day atrocities deserves no less.

In truth, I found "Dear Leader" to be more riveting and more revealing about North Korea. "Night" is a more poignant story of survival in a death camp. This one is still well worth reading, however. If you wonder how a system of 'guilt by association' affects the children and grandchildren of defectors, this says it all. Shin is no hero. He survived through sheer luck, and carries psychological scars show more that will never go away. But he gives voice to people who are otherwise unknown and unheard. This is important. Tens of thousands of people suffer as he did, and are robbed of the chance to live normal human lives. The truth of what's going on in forced labor camps should be acknowledged. show less