Bestsellers on North Korea (part 1)
By Jacob Lotinga
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“Imagination is more important than knowledge” ― so said Albert Einstein in a 1929 interview.
Given the mind’s extraordinary capacity to be transported, it’s bizarre that many of us are using this potential to inhabit North Korea’s gulags and propaganda offices, thanks to a plentiful supply of escape narratives.
As I let go of Jang Jin-sung’s “Dear Leader,” there are two key questions I feel compelled to address before starting Hyeonseo Lee’s “The Girl with Seven Names.” First, what magic ingredient makes these defectors’ accounts irresistible?
Secondly, how many more narratives do we need before human rights abuses are tackled?
In today’s Thought of the Times I’ll investigate the curious popularity of the escape narrative. I asked Korea watchers what gave the North Korea escape story bestseller potential ― the combination, perhaps, of a closed state with a clear hero or heroine who has hurdles to overcome before the “happy ending”?
Travel literature editor Jennifer Barclay, author of the South Korea travelogue, “Meeting Mr. Kim,” says of the North Korea escape stories: “People are always inspired to read narratives of survival over adversity.”
Michael Breen, author of “The New Koreans,” reels off a list of dramatic ingredients that the escape-from-North-Korea narrative has always offered ― the closed state’s almost unimaginable degree of absurdity and brutality reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984, the “coming of age moment where the protagonist’s eyes open,” what Breen calls the “terrifying all-or-nothing escape,” and then the defector’s struggle to adjust to life outside, still targeted by North Korean agents.
But Breen notes that a changing global context has helped transform escape tales into bestsellers: an increasingly democratized world exposes North Korea’s regime as “the worst kind of government imaginable.”
North Korea’s nuclear weapons development, adds Breen, makes it a top foreign policy for the U.S. president and keeps it in the news.
Paul French, author of “North Korea: State of Paranoia,” complicates the picture further. In travelling and discussing North Korea, French noticed that audiences in South Korea, America and Europe appreciated the escape tales for different reasons.
South Koreans, French tells me, want to know their neighbor and understand “that mad place to the north.” But French found that U.S. audiences viewed the North Korea escape narrative as an “old school Cold War escape from communism.” In the UK and Europe, he adds, the flight from North Korea is regarded as a personal journey from somewhere nasty to somewhere that will hopefully be a bit nicer.
French notes: “Bizarre aspects of the DPRK are emphasized.”
The “risky” nature of the publishing industry, says Breen, helps account for the stream of North Korea narratives.
Breen explains: “Publishers can’t predict what will earn them money and what won’t. That is why, when one book does well, you see three or four others of the same genre.”
Jacket designs may also play a part in selling narratives. French points out that young women ― Yeonmi Park, Hyeonseo Lee, Eunsun Kim ― grace front covers; older women and male defectors rarely do.
Bradley Martin, author of “Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader,” notes that “Escape from Camp 14” continued to sell briskly even after doubts were cast on defector Shin Dong-hyuk’s account.
Martin says: “This suggests that people buy the books mainly as escape literature.”
Barclay, who recommends Barbara Demick’s “Nothing to Envy” as well as “The Aquariums of Pyongyang” by Kang and Rigoulot, says: “What strikes me about books like this is how much we humans can endure, and I think they help us to put our own troubles into perspective.”
These narratives may fascinate us, help us resist self-pity, and sell well ― but are human rights abuses being addressed as a result? Is the proliferation of North Korea narratives helping, or have these escapes turned into a grim escapism? This is the question I’ll address in my next Thought of the Times.
Jacob Lotinga is an author based in Sheffield, U.K. Write to jblotinga@yahoo.com.