A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea

by Masaji Ishikawa

The soldiers would be sent to the front to be used as human shields against the shells. The laborers would be worked to the bone—and sometimes death—in coal mines or munitions factories. The life of an outlaw was a kind of liberation.

learned quickly that in that sort of situation, if you want to survive, you have to stifle your critical faculties and just get on with things.

And I came to recognize that, no matter how difficult the reality, you mustn’t let yourself be beaten. You must have a strong will. You have to summon what you know is right from your innermost depths and follow it.

A doctor who didn’t help people was worse than useless—he was a mockery of everything he stood for.

really wanted to say, “Have you ever built a shack with your bare hands? Have you hauled your mother’s corpse up a mountainside? Have you struggled to survive on a diet of weeds?”