A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea

The real North Korea

Want to know the story about the real North Korea, the one without the minders and censors, without Denis Rodman and hooey from Donald Trump? This is the meaning of true poverty, desperation, deprivation and starvation? Read this book and know.

Heartbreaking

Astonishingly well written chronicle of one man and his family's life in Japan and their move to North Korea in 1960. I couldn't get enough and read the whole thing ins one sitting.

I'm going to need a few days to process what I've just read.

We're often prone to looking upon North Korea through the lens of our perspective of Kim-Jong Un (i.e. a brat - albeit a dangerous one - with small man syndrome).

Not after this.

I knew that North Korea's citizens lived in poverty, but not like this.

Masaji Ishikawa's recounting of his daily toil is mentally exhausting. His bleak non-existence genuinely hurts to read. Death, starvation, brainwashing - it's desperately oppressive.

I hope, sincerely, that since writing this, he has been able to find some sort of peace.

I haven't felt this unsettled reading a book since Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure.

Here's the thing though. This isn't fiction.

I'm not sure I'll be able to bring myself to pick this one up again for a long time, but I'm tremendously glad that I did read it.

I can't give this less than 5 stars. It's an eye-opening account I'll never forget. Not necessarily for the right reasons, but I don't think Ishikawa would have it any other way.