Barbara Demick

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea North Korea is Orwell ́s 1984 made reality: it is the only country in the world not connected to the internet; Gone with the Wind is a dangerous, banned book; during political rallies, spies study your expression to check your sincerity. After the death of the country ́s great leader Kim Il Sung in 1994, famine descended: people stumbled over dead bodies in the street and ate tree bark to survive. Nothing to Envy weaves together the stories of adversity and resilience of six residents of Chongin, North Korea ́s third largest city. From extensive interviews and with tenacious investigative work, Barbara Demick has recreated the concerns, culture and lifestyles of North Korean citizens in a gripping narrative, and vividly reconstructed the inner workings of this extraordinary and secretive country.

Real Lives in North Korea

Nothing to Envy

The new book by award-winning journalist and National Book Award finalist Barbara Demick.

Life and Death in a Tibetan Town

Eat the Buddha

Follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years, a chaotic period that saw the rise to power of Kim Jong Il and the devastation of a famine that killed one-fifth of the population, illustrating what it means to live under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.

Swiatu nie mamy czego zazdroscic

John Costello

Introduces the war beleaguered, resourceful people and describes the day-to-day life on one street in Sarajevo during the summer of 1995, and includes an epilogue of recent developments.

Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood

Logavina Street

A Longa Noite de Um Povo

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

życie tybetańskiego miasteczka w cieniu Chin

Zjadanie Buddy

Geschiedenis van Tibet sedert de Chinese invasie van 1958 aan de hand van de levensverhalen van enkele Tibetanen.

een Tibetaans dorp onder Chinese heerschappij

De laatste prinses

For four centuries, Logavina Street was a quiet residential road in a cosmopolitan city, home to Muslims and Christians, Serbs and Croats. Then the war tore the street apart. In this extraordinary eyewitness account, Demick weaves together the stories of ten families from Logavina Street.

Life Under Fire on a Sarajevo Street

Besieged

Correspondente do jornal Los Angeles Times em Seul, capital da Coreia do Sul, entre 2001 e 2006, a jornalista americana Barbara Demick fez uma exaustiva pesquisa de documentos, fotos e vídeos e entrevistou dissidentes e refugiados norte-coreanos que haviam fugido para a Coreia do Sul ou para a China. Pontuadas por informações gerais sobre a economia e a cultura do país, as histórias de Nada a invejar - título irônico extraído de um hino ufanista norte-coreano - se entrelaçam para formar um painel bastante vívido do cotidiano na Coreia dos ditadores Kim Il-sung (1912-94) e Kim Jong-il (1942-2011), pai e filho que reinaram absolutos por mais de seis décadas e ainda perpetuam seu legado autoritário na figura do herdeiro Kim Jong-un. Uma das virtudes do livro é mostrar como o culto à personalidade dos tiranos foi forjado numa mistura peculiar de marxismo-leninismo mal digerido com as tradições religiosas e populares locais. O controle absoluto da vida pessoal, que faz de cada vizinho (ou mesmo um familiar) potencial espião e delator, perpassa os relatos de todos os personagens entrevistados, assim como as dificuldades materiais e a fome - sobretudo depois da crise de escassez dos anos 1990 -, as marcas da guerra entre as Coreias e as parcas perspectivas de progresso educacional ou profissional. Uma realidade sufocante que não exclui, porém, o humor, os gestos de altruísmo e solidariedade ou os sonhos de liberdade. Com uma escrita ágil e envolvente, que atesta o ótimo domínio das técnicas narrativas literárias, a autora conduz os leitores pela experiência fascinante de espiar a vida de uma das sociedades mais isoladas e reprimidas do planeta.

Vidas comuns na Coreia do Norte

Nada a invejar

Geschichten aus dem Alltag in Nordkorea

Im Land des Flüsterns

Geschichten aus einer tibetischen Stadt

Buddhas vergessene Kinder

Die preisgekrönte Journalistin und China-Kennerin Barbara Demick erzählt von Tibets Schicksal unter der chinesischen Herrschaft. Sie gibt ergreifende wie verstörende Einblicke in das Alltagsleben von acht Menschen, deren Leben die Geschichte eines ganzen Volkes und dessen Wunsch nach Freiheit widerspiegeln. Sich selbst verbrennen oder nicht? Der Junge hadert. Sein bester Freund hat es bereits getan – aus Protest gegen die chinesische Regierung, die Tibetern jeglichen gesellschaftlichen Aufstieg verwehrt, ihre Freiheit beschneidet und ihre Kultur zerstört. Barbara Demick schildert in ihrer bewegenden Reportage das Schicksal von acht Menschen, die in der ost-tibetischen Stadt Ngaba leben – einer Stadt, die als Zelle des Widerstands gilt und nicht zuletzt wegen der vielen Selbstverbrennungen besonders unter chinesischen Repressalien leidet. Die berührenden Lebensgeschichten geben tiefe Einblicke in den tibetischen Alltag abseits der touristischen Sehnsuchtsorte. Es ist ein Alltag, der geprägt ist vom Kampf zweier Kulturen, vom Ringen Tibets um politische Selbstbestimmung und kulturelle Identität, von Unterdrückung und Gewalt, von verborgenem Leid und der Hoffnung auf eine bessere Zukunft. Eine eindrückliche Hommage an die Menschen in Tibet.

Barbara Demick

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