Nothing To Envy

Updated in 2014 with a new epilogue. If you look at satellite photographs of the far east by night, you’ll see a large splotch curiously lacking in light. This area of darkness is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea… It is baffling how a nation of 23 million people can appear as vacant as the oceans. North Korea is simply a blank. North Korea is Orwell's 1984 made reality: it is the only country in the world not connected to the internet; Gone with the Wind is a dangerous, banned book; during political rallies, spies study your expression to check your sincerity. After the death of the country's great leader Kim Il Sung in 1994, famine descended: people stumbled over dead bodies in the street and ate tree bark to survive. Nothing to Envy weaves together the stories of adversity and resilience of six residents of Chongin, North Korea's third largest city. From extensive interviews and with tenacious investigative work, Barbara Demick has recreated the concerns, culture and lifestyles of North Korean citizens in a gripping narrative, and vividly reconstructed the inner workings of this extraordinary and secretive country. ‘Weaving together the accounts of six North Korean defectors, the American journalist Barbara Demick has created a fascinating portrait’ – The Guardian