A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
by Masaji Ishikawa
If you are a member of Amazon Prime, make sure you are signed up to get the First Reads e-mail every month. On the first of every month an e-mail arrives in your inbox with a selection of Kindle titles of which you get to choose one to read. A River in Darkness was one of those selections for December 2017. My interest in the novel came from the subtitle "One Man's Escape from North Korea". Since the subject of this country has been heavily populating the news cycle I figured it would be a great choice to broaden my understanding of the humanitarian angle of this subject.
This is a very short memoir at only 172 pages, although you get plenty of what you are looking for in that compact time. Masaji's story is heartbreaking every step of the way giving an account of the immense difficulty in being poor, an immigrant, and asylum seeker, and an outsider. In his native country, Japan, he is discriminated against because he is poor and half-Korean. When he is brought to North Korea by his father their family is despised for being "rich" because they hail from Japan. And his attempts to lift his family from their difficult position deepens the heartache brought to him.
This is the type of story that is hard to come to grips with as a reader. I was constantly wondering about the reasons for how little assistance there was for people like Masaji. No way to improve your conditions, no way to leave for better opportunities. The fact that people who are unhappy with their situation are forced to stay in this cycle of poverty because the government chooses to keep them there and the government does nothing to motivate the citizens to improve their lot. And those who do choose to help those trapped in this situation put their lives at risk by doing so.
Reading reviews for this memoir shows mostly compassion for the author. For him to speak out is a brazen act that could do him more harm in the short term, but hopefully by getting the story out he is able to get assistance otherwise denied to him and expose a system and scandal that may help others too. According to Masaji he is not authorized to tell his story due to the secrecy Japan requires due to their complicity in a mass migration of native Koreans out of their country to North Korea on false pretenses. Since Japan helped him escape they could be at risk of trouble with North Korea for assisting defectors. Masaji could very well be at risk of being deported back to North Korea due to his bravery.
It is mind blowing to think a society that treats its average citizen in such an atrocious manner is allowed to thrive in today's global economy. Between the human rights issues at play and the threat posed by North Korea to so much of the rest of the world it is proving to be the hardest social and political challenge of our current generation. To imagine anything but the worst when it comes to this issue is very difficult and this memoir puts those issues at the center of attention. Especially with the Winter Olympics on the world stage, where extensive measures are taken to prevent defections during the games in South Korea, it seems to perfect time to get educated on this regime and their tactics.
A River in Darkness is available on Kindle currently for $4.99.
This is a very short memoir at only 172 pages, although you get plenty of what you are looking for in that compact time. Masaji's story is heartbreaking every step of the way giving an account of the immense difficulty in being poor, an immigrant, and asylum seeker, and an outsider. In his native country, Japan, he is discriminated against because he is poor and half-Korean. When he is brought to North Korea by his father their family is despised for being "rich" because they hail from Japan. And his attempts to lift his family from their difficult position deepens the heartache brought to him.
This is the type of story that is hard to come to grips with as a reader. I was constantly wondering about the reasons for how little assistance there was for people like Masaji. No way to improve your conditions, no way to leave for better opportunities. The fact that people who are unhappy with their situation are forced to stay in this cycle of poverty because the government chooses to keep them there and the government does nothing to motivate the citizens to improve their lot. And those who do choose to help those trapped in this situation put their lives at risk by doing so.
Reading reviews for this memoir shows mostly compassion for the author. For him to speak out is a brazen act that could do him more harm in the short term, but hopefully by getting the story out he is able to get assistance otherwise denied to him and expose a system and scandal that may help others too. According to Masaji he is not authorized to tell his story due to the secrecy Japan requires due to their complicity in a mass migration of native Koreans out of their country to North Korea on false pretenses. Since Japan helped him escape they could be at risk of trouble with North Korea for assisting defectors. Masaji could very well be at risk of being deported back to North Korea due to his bravery.
It is mind blowing to think a society that treats its average citizen in such an atrocious manner is allowed to thrive in today's global economy. Between the human rights issues at play and the threat posed by North Korea to so much of the rest of the world it is proving to be the hardest social and political challenge of our current generation. To imagine anything but the worst when it comes to this issue is very difficult and this memoir puts those issues at the center of attention. Especially with the Winter Olympics on the world stage, where extensive measures are taken to prevent defections during the games in South Korea, it seems to perfect time to get educated on this regime and their tactics.
A River in Darkness is available on Kindle currently for $4.99.
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