From Our Editors
INDIGO SPOTLIGHT: Shin's experience is no typical prison story of unjust arrest, descent into barbaric survival, and redemptive liberation. He is a man born into the prison system and conditioned to snitch on his own family. When he escapes and wanders into the world, the deep flaws of his personality emerge. But, while Shin's difficult story is unique, his experience is not. He stands for the hundred thousand prisoners living in largely forgotten labour camps that have outlasted the Soviet gulag and have no celebrity champion. He speaks for the 25 million North Koreans living in a country stuck in a technological and political Cold War time-warp. He is only able to tell his story because he had the luck and courage to cross the camp wire. His harsh prison life and improbable journey to freedom is sometimes hard to read. Nevertheless, Shin's story challenges us to cast our eyes over the darker parts of the world and consider the fragile boundary between barbarity and humanity.
From the Publisher
A New York Times bestseller, the shocking story
of one of the few people born in a North Korean political prison to
have escaped and survived.
North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It
is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000
people are being held in its political prison camps, which have
existed twice as long as Stalin''s Soviet gulags and twelve times
as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised
in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did.
In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine
Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of
Shin''s life unlocks the secrets of the world''s most repressive
totalitarian state. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw
his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a
snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his own family. Through
Harden''s harrowing narrative of Shin''s life and remarkable
escape, he offers an unequaled inside account of one of the
world''s darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance, courage,
and survival.
About the Author
Blaine Harden is a contributor to The
Economist and has formerly served as The Washington
Post''s bureau chief in East Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa.
He is the author of Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile
Continent and A River Lost: The Life and Death of the
Columbia. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
Format: Hardcover
Published: April 3, 2012
Publisher: Viking Adult
Language: English
The following ISBNs are associated with this title:
ISBN - 10: 0670023329
ISBN - 13: 9780670023325
