Book review – In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom

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Today I am reviewing “In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom” a memoir of a prominent North Korean refugee, Park Yeon-mi. Park Yeon-mi is a North Korean defector and human rights activist who escaped from North Korea in 2007. Park comes from what was considered a relatively well-off and well-connected North Korean family. Their lives, however, changed dramatically as her father turned to black market trading during North Korea’s economic collapse in the 1990s. After he was sent to a labor camp for smuggling, her family fell from grace and faced starvation. After that they chose to flee the country heading to China. That was when Yeon-mi and her mother became victims of human traffickers, but eventually managed to escape to Mongolia and get to South Korea.

Currently, Park Yeon-mi dedicates her time working as a human rights activist and advocate for victims of human trafficking in China. She was propelled to global prominence after she delivered a speech about her story as North Korean refugee at the One Young World 2014 Summit in Dublin, which received millions of views on YouTube and other social media.

Relevance – 5/5

Indisputably, like several other mass-published memoirs of North Korean refugees (e.g. Escape from Camp 14; The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story), Park’s book is one of unique hand-on sources of information about North Korea, which already gives it a significant boost in relevance. What makes is stand out, I think, is that In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom is a memoir and yet it is also a cry for help that is trying to reach out to the international community. Unlike other memoirs, it does not touch upon only the North Korean human rights situation, but also upon the issues that the refugees face when living in China and other countries. The detailed account of Mrs. Park’s tragic experiences with smugglers and traffickers underlines how relevant these problems still are for many North Koreans even today. As the border security regime is growing stronger, these refugees are forced to pay more and more money with every year to smugglers, who promise to get them out of the country. If the refugees are unlucky, they might even end up becoming a part of illicit criminal schemes – Mrs. Park sheds some light on how horrifying such experiences can be.

Factuality – 4/5

If one looks purely at the story told in the book only (Mrs. Park gives many interviews and talks too), she presents a very detailed and structured account of her life in the 1990s; her escape to China in 2007 and, subsequently, to South Korea in 2009. On my part, I have not noticed any major factual mistakes or particularly suspicious statements. However, as Mrs. Park continued with mass-media activism some of the claims that she made in her memoirs came under question as a number of experts analyzed her interviews in conjunction with each other. For example, an Australian reporter, Mary Ann Jolley, pointed out these inconsistencies in her article published on The Diplomat (e.g. different accounts of their eating habits; details of her travels, etc.) 

Based on that, the reporter makes a valid point:  

Whether this [i.e. inaccuracies] matters is up to the reader to decide, but my concern is if someone with such a high profile twists their story to fit the narrative we have come to expect from North Korean defectors, our perspective of the country could become dangerously skewed. We need to have a full and truthful picture of life in North Korea if we are to help those living under its abysmally cruel regime and those who try to flee.

Naturally, this and some other investigations made people wonder how factually correct were the records that Mrs. Park made. These doubts also came around the same time a scandal happened with a different North Korean refugee, Shin Dong-hyuk. Mr. Shin has, apparently, seriously distorted his actual experiences in North Korea so as his memoirs could sell better in the West. While this was not the case with Mrs. Park, the fact that here stories were sometimes inconsistent was proven by several experts (incl. from journalists the Guardian). 

Mrs. Park behaved very wisely in the situation – she apologized for all the inconsistencies during her public statements, explaining it by her childhood traumas and language barrier that she faced in her first years of learning English. The book was edited after careful re-examination and detailed consultations with her friends and family members (esp. her mother), who also fled from the country. In the newly published edition of her memoir Mrs. Park claims to have corrected any factual mistakes, so if you choose to buy her book, make sure that it’s the most recent edition. 

Style & Structure – 5/5

The book tells you, like with many other North Korean refugees, a very dramatic and a very tragic story. I would say that it is well-written and quite easy to follow. Stylistically, the first chapters represent a classical autobiographic approach (as much as you can say that about a North Korean defector), while the latter include more and more reflections. The book is divided into three parts retelling her experiences in North Korea, China, and South Korea. The North Korean part is also supplemented by her old family photos. The book is quite short (288 pages) and to the point.

Objectivity – 4/5

The general expert consensus is that the book is quite accurate in its descriptions of the North Korean human rights abuses as well as the problems North Koreans face in China and in the South. I personally tend to agree with this opinion, even though I did take some parts with a grain of salt after cases like that of Shin Dong-huyk.

Similar to some issues that arose with regard to the book’s factuality, there are also some discussions about how objective the story is. One of the key problems about understanding the book’s objectivity (which is also relevant for many other defector stories) is that the role of a North Korean defector as an activist also can become a commercializing factor for many. This, in turn, might skew the book’s objectivity in some instances. As 38 North notes, human rights activism is a better livelihood than working in unskilled and low-paid sectors of the South Korean economy.

However, many parts of the books were confirmed by other North Korean refugees as well Park’s family members. Thus, you will definitely not be reading a bunch of anti-DPRK propaganda from radical South Korean conservatives (if that is what you would expect).

Total – 4.5/5

A fascinating memoir of a fascinating person, by all means. The book knows its average reader and tells the personal story of Park very well. At the same time, it can be overly dramatic in some instances, but we have to give the author some credit here. Even if half of it was not true, I would still never have wished anything like that as a fate to a different human being. So, if you are curious about North Korean refugees, make sure that you give it a read.

The book on Amazon.

Reviews on GoodReads.

Talks by Park Yeon-mi (incl. her channel):

Critical/analytical perspectives on Yeon-mi’s stories:

1. Guardian (2015). The woman who faces the wrath of North Korea, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/15/park-yeon-mi-north-korea-defector
2. The Guardian (2014). The Strange Tale of Yeonmi Park, https://thediplomat.com/2014/12/the-strange-tale-of-yeonmi-park/
3. 38 North (2015). When North Koreans Go South, Some Go Professional, https://www.38north.org/2015/06/jstrother062515/