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Title details for Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick - Wait list

Nothing to Envy

Ordinary Lives in North Korea

by Barbara Demick
Karen White
Audiobook
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Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today—an Orwellian world in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, a country that is by choice not connected to the Internet, a society in which outward displays of affection are punished, and a police state that rewards informants and where an offhanded remark can send a citizen to the gulag for life.


Demick's subjects—a middle-aged party loyalist and her rebellious daughter, an idealistic female doctor, an orphan, and two young lovers—all hail from the same provincial city in the farthest-flung northern reaches of the country. One by one, we witness the moments of revelation, when each realizes that they have been betrayed by the Fatherland and that their suffering is not a global condition but is uniquely theirs.


Nothing to Envy is the first book about North Korea to go deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors, and penetrate the mind-set of the average citizen. It is a groundbreaking and essential addition to the literature of totalitarianism.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    January 6, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400129843
      • File size: 360033 KB
      • Duration: 12:30:04

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      LOS ANGELES TIMES reporter Barbara Demick uses the firsthand experiences of six North Korean defectors to reveal the starvation, corruption, and poverty of daily life under the nation's repressive Communist regime. Despite the dismal subject, narrator Karen White is engaging; further, she handles the Korean names and accents expertly. As she delivers the defectors' riveting descriptions of life in North Korea during the famine years, the individual stories are deeply touching and ultimately inspiring. She powerfully recounts the great risks they took to escape to South Korea or China. This is an eye-opening and heartbreaking listen. B.C.E. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 22, 2010
      Following six North Koreans over the course of 15 years, Demick offers a haunting portrait of life in North Korea. Her subjects are instantly relatable—they fall in love, raise families—but as their country grows increasingly isolated, totalitarian, and repressive, and is ravaged by unemployment and famine, they risk everything to leave. Karen White delivers a stunning reading; her character interpretations are confident and well-rounded, and she forges a strong bond with the audience. Powerful without becoming overwrought, White handles the harrowing material with sensitivity and intelligence. An unforgettable listening experience that will resonate long after the final sentence. A Random hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 28).

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 28, 2009
      A fascinating and deeply personal look at the lives of six defectors from the repressive totalitarian regime of the Republic of North Korea, in which Demick, an L.A. Times
      staffer and former Seoul bureau chief, draws out details of daily life that would not otherwise be known to Western eyes because of the near-complete media censorship north of the arbitrary border drawn after Japan's surrender ending WWII. As she reveals, “ordinary” life in North Korea by the 1990s became a parade of horrors, where famine killed millions, manufacturing and trade virtually ceased, salaries went unpaid, medical care failed, and people became accustomed to stepping over dead bodies lying in the streets. Her terrifying depiction of North Korea from the night sky, where the entire area is blacked out from failure of the electrical grid, contrasts vividly with the propaganda on the ground below urging the country's worker-citizens to believe that they are the envy of the world. Thorough interviews recall the tremendous difficulty of daily life under the regime, as these six characters reveal the emotional and cultural turmoil that finally caused each to make the dangerous choice to leave. As Demick weaves their stories together with the hidden history of the country's descent into chaos, she skillfully re-creates these captivating and moving personal journeys.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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