How I Became a North Korean: A Novel
byKrys Lee
Top positive review
See all 18 positive reviews›
4.0 out of 5 starsOpen letter to Krys Lee: what in your book is plausible?
ByC. Prunieron September 11, 2016
Is your book a story, a drama, or an al its-documentary?
Do tell us. And please tell us what the options truly are, today, for North Koreans who cross over into China.
I have been to North Korea. Possibly some North Koreans live as these do, from Yongji, to Jangmi, but where are they... What is realistic. Some. Little. Or a little more than that?
Top critical review
See all 6 critical reviews›
3.0 out of 5 starsInteresting
ByR. Karron September 7, 2017
It was interesting but not riveting.
All reviewersAll starsAll formatsText, image, video
3.0 out of 5 starsInteresting
ByR. Karron September 7, 2017
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase
It was interesting but not riveting.
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4.0 out of 5 starsOpen letter to Krys Lee: what in your book is plausible?
ByC. Prunieron September 11, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
Is your book a story, a drama, or an al its-documentary?
Do tell us. And please tell us what the options truly are, today, for North Koreans who cross over into China.
I have been to North Korea. Possibly some North Koreans live as these do, from Yongji, to Jangmi, but where are they... What is realistic. Some. Little. Or a little more than that?
---------------
4.0 out of 5 starsVery realistic story of hope and survival.
ByNinnytendoon August 21, 2016
Format: Paperback
This is not a happy book but it is full of hope. It deals with the hardships and desperate situations of North Koreans and the perilous journeys some take to escape the dictatorship and to run away from persecution or extreme hardship.
In the novel three young people from different backgrounds see themselves thrown together in a situation of struggle and danger to flee North Korea in order to survive. The main characters are Danny (Daehan) who is American by nationality but whose ancestors are North Korean and whose mother works with missionaries in China near the North Korean border. Jangmi, who flees North Korea and sells herself to a broker across the border to give her unborn baby a chance in life and Yongju whose father, a high rank official, is shot by the “Dear Leader” and has to flee with his mother and sister in order to escape persecution. The three youngsters meet by chance in their struggle to escape and are rescued by two missionaries who will use them to receive funds from sponsors. Their struggle for freedom is Lee’s way to convey the sorry situation of ordinary North Koreans to escape the dictatorship in order to survive.
I am very interested in the stories of ordinary North Koreans who have managed to escape and relate what life is like in the dictatorship. Krys Lee tells a story so realistic it feels authentic and very moving. After reading the novel I found out that Lee has listened herself to many first person accounts of flight and even helped a refugee escape from a Chinese Christian missionary who was keeping him hostage to receive donations and funding. The missionary got furious with her and she received death threats, so she decided to create Missionary Kwon in the novel as a form or revenge.
Although a work of fiction, this book gets us closer to the struggle of ordinary North Koreans and how they have to flee their families and communities in order to survive and live without the threat of prosecution, torture or being interned in work camps The style of the writing is a little slow at times but it helps to draw you in the situation of struggle and desperation of the characters. The story is told from the perspective of the three main characters and each chapter deals with their point of view and story, which complements the story and flow of events. I enjoyed this novel very much and would recommend it.
I received a proof copy of this book from Nudge to read and review and this is my personal and unbiased opinion.
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4.0 out of 5 starsA new classic in the canon of the world refugee crisis
ByBryonyon August 27, 2016
Format: Hardcover
In this overwhelmingly claustrophobic novel about survival, Krys Lee brings the world of borderland North Korea to uncomfortably proximity.
Lee's story navigates the gritty and dangerous experience of two North Korean refugees to China, and the distinct hardships that meet them once they have crossed the border. Borderland China evokes a land of waste and human trafficking--not just the brokers and smugglers dealing in escapees from the south, but further exploitation and abuse of those vulnerable arrivals. The North Koreans are not welcome in China and in fact, are routinely repatriated if they are not kidnapped into prostitution or indentured servitude. It's the lucky few who make it to South Korea, an overland journey requiring money and contacts that few have.
The strong tradition of Christianity in South Korea plays an ambiguous role in Lee's novel. American and South Korean missionaries run sanctuaries for the refugees along the border, but there is little oversight or cooperation among each group. Lee's Christian missionaries are thinly-veiled personality disorders, claiming to be representatives of God, while holding refugees hostage in forced conversion before any promise of freedom. The story compresses its characters into small, humiliating spaces to emphasize their lack of freedom; crammed truck beds, freezing caves, locked houses with windows shut to prevent escape.
It is not until the end that this claustrophobic, interior life relents, and the relief to the reader is as palpable as that for the characters. But that discomfort is the effective tool in Lee's story, bringing the characters and this misery-strewn borderland to life, and making us care. The story is not without hope, but Lee is very much the pragmatist for her personal experience in assisting refugees outside her writing life. Her authority for the topic and her gift for writing give the novel an unsettling charge that lingers.
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4.0 out of 5 starsFrom the frying pan into the fire
ByRalph Blumenauon September 21, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition
This is a story, told in alternating autobiographical chapters, by three young Koreans who in 2009 found themselves in China:
Yong Ju is the son of a father who was part of the North Korean establishment until Kim Jong-il took against him and shot him dead during a dinner. Yong Ju, then 21, his mother and sister were then able, with the help of a friend, to escape across the Tumen River into China, only to find gangsters on the Chinese side abducting the mother and the sister, leaving Yong Ju to find shelter in a cave in the mountains.
Jangmi has become pregnant and, in desperation, had arranged via broker to marry an old crippled Chinese man and had bribed the border guards to let her cross the river. When the husband and his mother find out that she is pregnant, she is driven out of the house and eventually also finds shelter in the cave.
Daehan (Danny) and his parents had emigrated from a Korean area in China to the United States. They are a Christian family, and his mother had gone back to China to become a missionary. Danny, aged sixteen, is such an unhappy misfit at school that his father arranged for him to rejoin the mother in China. When he gets there, he finds that his mother is having an affaire with a Chinese deacon, and he is so horrified that he runs away, and, after horrific adventures, also ends up in the cave.
Danny thinks the Church will look after them, and he and Yong Ju, together with several other young North Korean refuges, do find accommodation in a safe house run by a Chinese missionary, Mr Kwon. Jangmi had run away from the cave and had some terrible experiences before she, too, is rescued by Mr Kwong, so the three are reunited. Mr Kwon had said that he could get them from the safe house to South Korea – but will not let them go, ostensibly until they have mastered the whole of the Bible, but actually he has ulterior motives.
It is not surprising that people try to flee from the oppressive regime in North Korea (there are several references to the terrible famine between 1994 and 1998); but the novel shows all the dangers to which North Koreans are exposed in China. If found, they may be sent back to North Korea. Most Chinese dislike the Koreans intensely, refuse to help the refugees. Thugs and gangsters will rob them, exploit and mistreat them, or sell them into prostitution. Even the safe house is in effect a prison run by a hypocritical tyrant. The bleakness and horror of their lives pervades most of the book.
The short last section, set six years later, is called “Freedom”, so I am not giving a spoiler when I say that they eventually escape and get out of China.
Apart from being a painful read, it is not an easy one: there are many untranslated Korean words, the meaning of only some of which one can guess; in places the triple narrative is quite confusing and there seem to be some gaps in their collective story. The title seems odd to me also: the characters were North Korean already; one of them had become an American, the other two became South Koreans.
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5.0 out of 5 starsSobering Tale
ByLizon August 23, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
The horrific tragedy of Otto Warmbier brings the ever present threat of North Korean to the forefront once again. In recent years, a few documentary films have been made about smuggling North Koreans out to China and then down into Thailand where they get deported, hopefully, to South Korea. Krys Lee takes these facts and creates a harrowing novel about three teenagers, Jangmi, Danny, and Yongju, who follow a similar path.
The two boys and one girl couldn’t be more dissimilar. Jangmi has had to fend for herself from an early age. Now she is pregnant and has sold herself into marriage with a Chinese man who is unaware of her pregnancy. Danny is from an upper middle-class family in California. He is an immigrant from China with North Korean ancestry. Danny hates everything about his life in California and is holding his breath until he can go to Harvard. Yongju is the son of a well placed North Korean who loses everything after his father’s unlawful deeds are punished by the great leader.
The interesting narrative of the novel shows us how these three souls wind up twisting in the wind. They cross paths and then wind up together in a safe house run by a missionary. The description of life for the poor people who live on the Chinese-North Korean border is appalling and the life of the children who are homeless is one of despair and tragedy. Krys Lee presents strong views on culture, religion, and politics in her first novel. This novel is a powerful book for those who are not aware of the unimaginable plight of North Koreans today.
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4.0 out of 5 stars"China's the worst part-everyone says that. We will get out. We will."
Bysally tarboxon November 10, 2017
Format: Paperback
A very well-written and exciting account of three young people who come together in China, just over the border from N Korea. There's Yongju, an academic boy from a highly privileged background; his parents are associates of the Dear Leader. Then they fall from favour and there's a panicking escape...
For working-class Jangmi, the realisation that she's pregnant decides her to cross the river for the sake of her unborn child.
And Danny, an American youth of Korean ancestry, is a troubled (autistic?) albeit bright kid. Bullied at school, gay, in an awkward relationship with his emotionally stunted father, he's sent to stay in China with his mother, who's over there doing missionary work. But when problems ensue, he ends up living rough with the other two...
Brings to life the horrors of N Korea's regime and the trauma of being an illegal immigrant to China. Human trafficking, brutality, betrayal - even living a 'safe' life is not always easy.
Convincingly written, apart from Danny's adventures. From a plausible first few chapters following him through school and summer camp, his personality well delineated, I became unsure that this boy would have chosen to stay with the street kids of China, despite his issues at home.
But still couldn't put it down.
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4.0 out of 5 starsBoth ambitious and courageous --- it won't disappoint
ByBookreporteron September 6, 2016
Format: Hardcover
It’s a good thing that summer is winding down, because HOW I BECAME A NORTH KOREAN is hardly beach reading. A debut novel by an accomplished short story writer, Krys Lee, it builds on each chapter (alternately related by one of three protagonists) in much the same way that a good short story collection does. The result is a powerful portrait of young refugees as they attempt to make their way to freedom.
The surprising twist in the plot is that one of the three --- Daehan, or Danny, as he is known to his friends back home --- is a Chinese American teenager who leaves California in search of his missionary mother. When he returns to his old hometown in Southeast China, only to find her living with the deacon from her church, he flees her apartment. Through a string of bad luck, he ends up in a netherworld bordering North Korea, where guards, thieves and local informants are on the lookout for escapees.
There he meets up with Yongju, the son of a prominent North Korean family that has fallen out of grace, forcing his mother, sister and him to escape. The women are not as fortunate as Yongju, who watches as they’re taken away after crossing the river into China. He is left behind with no idea of how to make his way without the language, money or ID, and frantically hoping that he will be able to reunite with them. Soon he befriends Danny, who speaks both Mandarin and Korean, and they set off to find missionaries who will harbor them. En route they meet up with beautiful Jangmi, who wants to go to South Korea in order to find a better life for her unborn child. She falls in with them for a time, but her motives are as suspect as everyone else’s, and soon she strikes out on her own --- for a while.
Despite the grinding monotony of the group’s daily life, the plot twists and emotional upheaval keep the reader engaged, as does the language. And while it’s not always clear who is the good guy or even whose story is being told (their narratives are told in a similar style), the cumulative effect of these intertwining chapters and lives is haunting. Perhaps having been to the country whose Dear Leader overshadows every page of this book adds a piquancy for this reader, but it’s also true that the stories told here are variations on those of any young refugee. Who to trust, how to keep hope alive, what matters most when life is so precarious, are the kinds of questions with which each character has to grapple. Lee is generous enough to give us a hint as to what will become of these young people, whose stories seem so real (and indeed the author has worked for a refugee organization), but it’s clear that their lives are marked by what they have witnessed in the journey.
HOW I BECAME A NORTH KOREAN is a novel that is both ambitious and courageous, and for those who are willing to make the effort, it won’t disappoint.
Reviewed by Lorraine W. Shanley
----------------
4.0 out of 5 stars... a North Korean by Krys Lee is a lot like the Korean delicacy kimchi—a confounding blend of elements that
ByC. Gilmoreon September 4, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition
How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee is a lot like the Korean delicacy kimchi—a confounding blend of elements that, until it has fermented, can be confusing and difficult to appreciate. But, just like kimchi, by halfway through the novel the three disparate main characters have released their identities to make the story come together. Danny is a sixteen-year-old boy, living in America after his family emigrated when he was nine from an ethnically Korean area of China. Yong Ju is also sixteen, but he is the son of wealthy and important North Korean parents, living a life of luxury in Pyongyang. When his father angers the Dear Leader he and his mother and sister must escape the country to avoid being put in a labor camp or worse. Jangmi is a young North Korean woman who has been surviving as a smuggler, eking out a living selling black market goods from China until she becomes pregnant and enters a bride-for-purchase agreement with a Chinese man in order to escape the country.
For Yong Ju and Jangmi escape to China is a matter of survival. They come from opposite backgrounds, with Yong Ju and his life of privilege having no idea how people like Jangmi lived in total deprivation and isolation from the outside world. Once in China he faces a new reality
I was no longer a privileged man from Pyongyang but a North Korean that you could abuse without punishment, and the locals knew it too well. I learned that a North Korean man in China was less than a man… loc 1166
Danny is more of a mystery. He is socially awkward with a penchant for facts and information, but wrestles with his faith and his sexuality. When a classmate threatens to expose him, the need to get away feels real, but his actions after finding his mother in China, when he decides to head for the Chinese-North Korean border, lurch into what can only be seen as the impulsivity of the teenage brain. Rash action without thought of consequences. Only when his passport is stolen what was an ‘adventure’ does become a matter of survival.
For anyone ignorant of the realities of North Korea and China, How I Became a North Korean can become a cultural quagmire with so many ethnicities and social classes. The cultural prejudices and ethnic distinctions are confusing and become even more so, when all three characters are living in China as illegal immigrants. There are points when this does burden the narrative, but Lee skillfully reins it back into the intersection of Yong Ju, Jangmi and Danny’s lives together. She melds the internal journey of each with the hostility and prejudice that surrounds them to create a novel that is fraught with danger from within and without.
You can find more book reviews at The Gilmore Guide to Books
---------------
4.0 out of 5 starsFever dream of a book for a fever dream of a country
ByJennyon October 19, 2016
Format: Hardcover
This debut novel by Krys Lee, who has worked with defectors from North Korea herself, follows three characters on a long and strange journey to find a reality that they can accept. Yongju is the son of privilege in North Korea, forced to flee after the Dear Leader kills his father in cold blood; while a pregnant Jangmi allows herself to be sold into marriage in China in the hopes that her new husband will believe the baby is his. The non-North Korean of the group is Danny, a Korean American teenager in search of meaning.
How I Became a North Korean is a weird fever dream of a book for a weird fever dream of a country. If some of the plot twists seem unlikely, it can’t even compare to the unlikelihood that a country like North Korea could exist, this rarefied environment in which the country’s leader acts with utter impunity against his own people, and of which so little is reliably known that we can’t even assess what needs to change.
(Except, you know, everything.)
Krys Lee is writing about something I haven’t encountered before, which is the difficulties that North Koreans face after crossing out of their own country. Though rescue organizations do exist, Lee has had some experience with predatory Christian agencies less interested in helping refugees than gaining more donation money from visitors. This experience informs the bulk of the book, as North Korean refugees find not safety but a new kind of captivity when they leave their country.
4.0 out of 5 starsBoth ambitious and courageous --- it won't disappoint
ByBookreporteron September 6, 2016
Format: Hardcover
It’s a good thing that summer is winding down, because HOW I BECAME A NORTH KOREAN is hardly beach reading. A debut novel by an accomplished short story writer, Krys Lee, it builds on each chapter (alternately related by one of three protagonists) in much the same way that a good short story collection does. The result is a powerful portrait of young refugees as they attempt to make their way to freedom.
The surprising twist in the plot is that one of the three --- Daehan, or Danny, as he is known to his friends back home --- is a Chinese American teenager who leaves California in search of his missionary mother. When he returns to his old hometown in Southeast China, only to find her living with the deacon from her church, he flees her apartment. Through a string of bad luck, he ends up in a netherworld bordering North Korea, where guards, thieves and local informants are on the lookout for escapees.
There he meets up with Yongju, the son of a prominent North Korean family that has fallen out of grace, forcing his mother, sister and him to escape. The women are not as fortunate as Yongju, who watches as they’re taken away after crossing the river into China. He is left behind with no idea of how to make his way without the language, money or ID, and frantically hoping that he will be able to reunite with them. Soon he befriends Danny, who speaks both Mandarin and Korean, and they set off to find missionaries who will harbor them. En route they meet up with beautiful Jangmi, who wants to go to South Korea in order to find a better life for her unborn child. She falls in with them for a time, but her motives are as suspect as everyone else’s, and soon she strikes out on her own --- for a while.
Despite the grinding monotony of the group’s daily life, the plot twists and emotional upheaval keep the reader engaged, as does the language. And while it’s not always clear who is the good guy or even whose story is being told (their narratives are told in a similar style), the cumulative effect of these intertwining chapters and lives is haunting. Perhaps having been to the country whose Dear Leader overshadows every page of this book adds a piquancy for this reader, but it’s also true that the stories told here are variations on those of any young refugee. Who to trust, how to keep hope alive, what matters most when life is so precarious, are the kinds of questions with which each character has to grapple. Lee is generous enough to give us a hint as to what will become of these young people, whose stories seem so real (and indeed the author has worked for a refugee organization), but it’s clear that their lives are marked by what they have witnessed in the journey.
HOW I BECAME A NORTH KOREAN is a novel that is both ambitious and courageous, and for those who are willing to make the effort, it won’t disappoint.
Reviewed by Lorraine W. Shanley
----------------
4.0 out of 5 stars... a North Korean by Krys Lee is a lot like the Korean delicacy kimchi—a confounding blend of elements that
ByC. Gilmoreon September 4, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition
How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee is a lot like the Korean delicacy kimchi—a confounding blend of elements that, until it has fermented, can be confusing and difficult to appreciate. But, just like kimchi, by halfway through the novel the three disparate main characters have released their identities to make the story come together. Danny is a sixteen-year-old boy, living in America after his family emigrated when he was nine from an ethnically Korean area of China. Yong Ju is also sixteen, but he is the son of wealthy and important North Korean parents, living a life of luxury in Pyongyang. When his father angers the Dear Leader he and his mother and sister must escape the country to avoid being put in a labor camp or worse. Jangmi is a young North Korean woman who has been surviving as a smuggler, eking out a living selling black market goods from China until she becomes pregnant and enters a bride-for-purchase agreement with a Chinese man in order to escape the country.
For Yong Ju and Jangmi escape to China is a matter of survival. They come from opposite backgrounds, with Yong Ju and his life of privilege having no idea how people like Jangmi lived in total deprivation and isolation from the outside world. Once in China he faces a new reality
I was no longer a privileged man from Pyongyang but a North Korean that you could abuse without punishment, and the locals knew it too well. I learned that a North Korean man in China was less than a man… loc 1166
Danny is more of a mystery. He is socially awkward with a penchant for facts and information, but wrestles with his faith and his sexuality. When a classmate threatens to expose him, the need to get away feels real, but his actions after finding his mother in China, when he decides to head for the Chinese-North Korean border, lurch into what can only be seen as the impulsivity of the teenage brain. Rash action without thought of consequences. Only when his passport is stolen what was an ‘adventure’ does become a matter of survival.
For anyone ignorant of the realities of North Korea and China, How I Became a North Korean can become a cultural quagmire with so many ethnicities and social classes. The cultural prejudices and ethnic distinctions are confusing and become even more so, when all three characters are living in China as illegal immigrants. There are points when this does burden the narrative, but Lee skillfully reins it back into the intersection of Yong Ju, Jangmi and Danny’s lives together. She melds the internal journey of each with the hostility and prejudice that surrounds them to create a novel that is fraught with danger from within and without.
You can find more book reviews at The Gilmore Guide to Books
---------------
4.0 out of 5 starsFever dream of a book for a fever dream of a country
ByJennyon October 19, 2016
Format: Hardcover
This debut novel by Krys Lee, who has worked with defectors from North Korea herself, follows three characters on a long and strange journey to find a reality that they can accept. Yongju is the son of privilege in North Korea, forced to flee after the Dear Leader kills his father in cold blood; while a pregnant Jangmi allows herself to be sold into marriage in China in the hopes that her new husband will believe the baby is his. The non-North Korean of the group is Danny, a Korean American teenager in search of meaning.
How I Became a North Korean is a weird fever dream of a book for a weird fever dream of a country. If some of the plot twists seem unlikely, it can’t even compare to the unlikelihood that a country like North Korea could exist, this rarefied environment in which the country’s leader acts with utter impunity against his own people, and of which so little is reliably known that we can’t even assess what needs to change.
(Except, you know, everything.)
Krys Lee is writing about something I haven’t encountered before, which is the difficulties that North Koreans face after crossing out of their own country. Though rescue organizations do exist, Lee has had some experience with predatory Christian agencies less interested in helping refugees than gaining more donation money from visitors. This experience informs the bulk of the book, as North Korean refugees find not safety but a new kind of captivity when they leave their country.
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