The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee

She's from a family with high class, had a relatively comfortable life to North Korean standard, and did not leave her country and family with the intention of never going back and in search for freedom. What Hyeonseo offers in this book is quite different from other N.Korean defector's story.

However, I found this book intriguing, unique and inspiring. Strong, brave and eloquent, this memoir is a triumph of her remarkable spirit.įull Disclosure: I am a South Korean and I have encountered with a number of readings, TED-talks, Youtube videos on life in North Korea, testimonies of North Korean defectors on horrific lives in our neighbor country. This is the unique story not only of Hyeonseo’s escape from the darkness into the light, but also of her coming of age, education and the resolve she found to rebuild her life – not once, but twice – first in China, then in South Korea.

Twelve years and two lifetimes later, she would return to the North Korean border in a daring mission to spirit her mother and brother to South Korea, on one of the most arduous, costly and dangerous journeys imaginable. Hyeonseo instead remained in China and rapidly learned Chinese in an effort to adapt and survive. She could not return, since rumours of her escape were spreading, and she and her family could incur the punishments of the government authorities – involving imprisonment, torture, and possible public execution. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?Īged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea.

Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.Īs a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal totalitarian regime.

The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee