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psychohobbit 's review for:
A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
by Masaji Ishikawa
This is a book that left me wanting to know more, and I haven't been able to find out much more. That's not surprising since the author escaped from North Korea and tells a very disturbing and tragic tale of his life. The shortcoming is this is tough to validate its accuracy. The author is not educated - beyond the equivalent of a basic education which occurred before his family (he was around 13 at the time) moved to North Korea. Even if this is not entirely accuracy, assuming most of it is accurate (and it may all be accurate), North Korea is, as the author describes it, hell on earth. Masaji's Korean father moved the family to North Korea on the Communist promise of North Korea but found instead even more oppression and poverty than anything experienced in Japan. A couple of points are very apparent from reading this book. 1) Anytime anyone in North Korea is successful (i.e. making real improvements in a very dysfunctional society), they are immediately ruined because no one can gain power and/or look better than the 'supreme leader.' 2) Age old knowledge (such as the planting distance between rice plants) is improved by the unproven party method causing crops to fail and people to starve. 3) North Korea leaders really hate America and use that as the great enemy. I don't think there will be any resolution with this country. Masaji has experienced a very tragic life. It's important to read. I rated this at 4 stars and not 5 stars simply because the accuracy cannot be validated.