Escape from North Korea is based on the first-hand account of a human-rights activist’s time in North Korea, where she worked for an NGO. Shared anonymously (for reasons of security) with her friend, the novelist and screenwriter Daniele Zanon, this account has become a novel that reflects the painful reality of life under a dictatorship in a country that the United Nations has called “one large prison.”
The brutality of the regime turns North Korean daily life into a collective nightmare. With a light but firm hand, Daniele Zanon tells the story of a group of young people condemned to live this nightmare in a North Korean “rehabilitation commune,” from which they decide to escape. Their adventures are as engaging as they are extraordinary, against the backdrop of a country where the all-powerful Kim family is deified, the military omnipotent and foreigners a source of wonder and fear. The strange story of one of the rare Western families living in Pyongyang is skilfully woven into the narrative, which has a fantastic ending filled with hope.