《我们最幸福：北韩人民的真实生活》

    Author Barbara Demick follows the lives of six ordinary North Koreans: a couple of teenage lovers courting in secret, an idealistic* female doctor, a homeless boy, a model factory worker who loves Kim Il Sung more than her own family and her rebellious* daughter.

    Demick spent six years painstakingly* reconstructing life in a city off-limits* to outsiders through interviews with defectors*, smuggled photographs and videos.

    The book spans the chaotic years that saw the death of Kim Il Sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong Il, the devastating* effects of a famine* that killed an estimated* 20 percent of the population, and an increase in illegal defections.

    While many books focus on the North Korean nuclear threat, this book is one of the few that touch the topic of what everyday life is like for ordinary citizens.

    With remarkable detail, Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian* regime* in the world today. She gives a portrait as vivid as walking oneself through the darkened streets of North Korea.

    Reviewers have compared the book to John Hersey’s “Hiroshima” and to Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” It is a groundbreaking addition to the literature* of totalitarianism. Both the New Yorker and Paris Review have published excerpts of the book.

    (SD-Agencies)