Name: The Aquariums of Pyongyang
Rating: 3.863636363636364 (11 reviews)
ISBN: 9780465011049

Chol-hwan Kang

Pierre Rigoulot

Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, one man's suffering gives eyewitness proof to an ongoing sorrowful chapter of modern history.

Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag

The Aquariums of Pyongyang

altlovesbooks

Growing up in Japan, the author's korean family gets duped into believing all the South Korean propaganda about returning to the homeland, and he finds himself leaving his well-off life behind in exchange for something much more grim. The family attempts to make do as best they can following this poor decision, but the family ends up getting thrown into a re-education camp for ten years. The bulk of the book takes place here, where the author describes the horrific conditions, punishments, and daily life they endured for those ten years.

I thought this book's perspective was unique and interesting, as this was the first book I've read which describes the inside of these re-education camps. For obvious reasons, once you're released (as this author was), you're discouraged from talking about your time there. But I also thought the writing felt flat, unemotional, and distant, which may be a product of the author's experiences. I just didn't feel as drawn in or as emotional as I've felt reading other books on this subject. I thought Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom were both better reads, both in terms of depiction and in terms of writing style.

I don't think I'd recommend this book to someone new to the topic of North Korea, but it's a nice, new look at something that isn't depicted very often in other books for people who are familiar with the topic.

Chʻŏr-hwan Kang

Kang Chol-hwan grew up in North Korean labour camps and escaped to South Korea to document his personal life as a testimonial to the hardships and atrocities that still constitute the lives of several hundred thousand people living in the gulag today.

Yuri croci

Stephanie O'Sullivan

Lovro Oreskovic

Kang Chol-Hwan

A magnificent, harrowing testimony to the voiceless victims of North Korea. Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of a North Korean concentration camp to escape the 'hermit kingdom' and tell his story to the world. This memoir reveals the human suffering in his camp, with its forced labour, frequent public executions and near-starvation rations. Kang eventually escaped to South Korea via China to give testimony to the hardships and atrocities that constitute the lives of the thousands of people still detained in the gulags today. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this story of one young man's personal suffering finally gives eye-witness proof to this neglected chapter of modern history.

The Aquariums of Pyongyang Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag

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