An extraordinary insight into life under one of the worldxs most ruthless and secretive dictatorships x and the story of one womanxs terrifying struggle to avoid capturerepatriation and guide her family to freedomAs a child growing up in North Korea Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime 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 s struck she began to wonder question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life Given the repression poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be as she had been told xCthe best on the planetxDAged seventeen she decided to escape North Korea She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her familyShe could not return since rumours of her escape were spreading and she and her family could incur the punishments of the government authorities x involving imprisonment torture and possible public execution Hyeonseo instead remained in China and rapidly learned Chinese in an effort to adapt and survive 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 imaginableThis is the unique story not only of Hyeonseoxs escape from the darkness into the light but also of her coming of age education and the resolve she found to rebuild her life x not once but twice x first in China then in South Korea Strong brave and eloquent this memoir is a triumph of her remarkable spirit.
