Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Written by Barbara Demick

Narrated by Karen White

Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today—an Orwellian world in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, a country that is by choice not connected to the Internet, a society in which outward displays of affection are punished, and a police state that rewards informants and where an offhanded remark can send a citizen to the gulag for life.



Demick's subjects—a middle-aged party loyalist and her rebellious daughter, an idealistic female doctor, an orphan, and two young lovers—all hail from the same provincial city in the farthest-flung northern reaches of the country. One by one, we witness the moments of revelation, when each realizes that they have been betrayed by the Fatherland and that their suffering is not a global condition but is uniquely theirs.



Nothing to Envy is the first book about North Korea to go deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors, and penetrate the mind-set of the average citizen. It is a groundbreaking and essential addition to the literature of totalitarianism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jan 6, 2010
• ISBN: 9781400179848

Barbara Demick

Barbara Demick is the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times. Her reporting on North Korea won the Overseas Press Club’s award for human rights reporting as well as awards from the Asia Society and the American Academy of Diplomacy. Her coverage of Sarajevo for the Philadelphia Inquirer won the George Polk Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting. Her previous book is Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood.

Reviews for Nothing to Envy

[Dexter Smyre · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I Loved it a lot and learned from it, thanks

[Kirbee Barney · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love how many stories were in this book, it gave so many different perspectives. The people’s stories in this book weighed heavy on my heart and really opened my eyes to a subject I had never really considered before. And the audiobook voice actress was amazing and added to the experience as well.

[Joey Peters · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great info on a horrible situation. Hope all is well!!

[Kate Packer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was painful to read. It is a country-size consentration camp, and it keeps operating.

[Jeff Mathwig · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Outstanding book with a great narrator. The stories of the brave individuals who escaped North Korea are inspiring.

[knittingmomof3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Highly emotional, raw, and a book I shall not soon forget, Nothing to Envy is an extraordinary work of non-fiction which will engage the reader from the first page and not let go. Demick's journalistic and writing style is brilliant and I cannot wait to read her next work of non-fiction, Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood.

[Jeremy Robinson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well written! Using real people and their stories to trace the history of North Korea made for an easy to follow and quite engaging book. I would recommend this to anyone interested in North Korean history or just in need of a gripping story.

[chenga_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The narrative Demick provides about the lives of North-Koreans and how the country's state policies affect people in North-Korea is fascinating and insightful. The writing style is clear and engaging, and personal stories are complemented with accurate and well-documented historical and economical information. Demick provides insights up to 2010, which is extremely recent. This is an important read, especially because the infringement of human rights is ongoing.This is a must read for anyone in the world, and especially for those interested in North-Korea, communist regimes, human rights, foreign cultures/countries, and/or great works of non-fiction. I loved it!

[Pre-Owned Politics · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I listened to this book right after They Thought They Were Free about the middle class German experience in Nazi Germany. Both describe the lives of ordinary powerless people in an increasingly authoritarian society.

Very relevant for modern times.

[Chaylea Buchanan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book tells about the lives of real people who escaped North Korea. One of the few books I couldn't put down, as well as one I have reread multiple times.

[melkor81205 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Barbara Demick gives us a rare glimpse into the day to day life of the people of North Korea. Through the tales of six people who managed to escape the "Hermit Kingdom" we are exposed to horrors that are all but unimaginable. We read of the intial prosperity of the country during the 60's and 70's and the decline from there which ends in the famines of the 1990's. We read of a country where the people are so malnurished the average height to be accepted into the army was lowered(something like five feet). A country where if you were able to purchase a television set, you would need to register it with the government,who would then block all channels accept the approved state television networks, and could then show up at your home to inspect the television. As I read this book I had to stop and process the severity of the tales the author was telling us. People starving in such numbers you would literally stumble over dead people in the street. Arrests and deportations of 3 generations of a family for the most minor infractions. This is a must read for anyone interested in the Stalinist state, although it is at times hard to process due to the overwhelmingly depressing tales.

[Jj · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you're hesitant about reading this book don't be. Very interesting accounts of people who lived in North Korea and were able to get out and their struggles to assimilate.

[jamesmscott-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Everything you want to know about the sorry state of the last bastion of totalitarian/communism, in the soul-numbing, automaton version imagined in Orwell's 1984. Told by the former L.A. Times Seoul-based correspondent through the stories of several defectors, whose bleak circumstances lead them to make harrowing efforts to escape. The iron curtain drawn between the "Chosins", as they call their countries, is much thicker than the wall that divided the Germanys. Astounding that the regime survives. I was glad to see her follow through with their assimilations into South Korean society. (The book was marred only by some unedited repetitions in a couple of places that I find inexcusable.)

[catalogthis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Powerful, relevant journalism. Reads like a novel. Can't recommend highly enough.

[hanneri_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an incredible work of narrative reporting. It’s also a vital document that gives voice to the citizens of a nation that’s committed probably the worst repression of free will in modern history--a nation that keeps its people believing they have “nothing to envy” and that things are much worse in the rest of the world. It’s assembled from a series of interviews with a handful of North Koreans who defected to South Korea at enormous risk, and their stories give a deeply human dimension to what everyone in the first world knows mostly through headlines alone.One by one, these North Koreans--Oak-hee, Mrs. Song, Mi-ran, Hyuck, and Jun-sang, among others--come to face a snowballing misery: theirs is a country without electricity, industry, or even privacy, abandoned by once-Communist nations turned westward, wracked by starvation, and blanketed with the constant threat of execution for even a whiff of dissent to Kim Jong-il’s delusional, nuclear arms-obsessed regime (which still refers to the dead Kim Il-sung as “eternal leader.”) But out of hunger and desperation--and as untold hundreds of thousands (and eventually as many as 2 million) of their countrymen die of famine--these increasingly intrepid North Koreans come to “unlearn a lifetime of propaganda” and conjure the will to survive. Their dramatic escapes, and their struggles to start bewildering and often seriously disorienting new lives in South Korea, are hallmarks of one of the most enthralling awakenings anyone could imagine. Highly recommended.

[moonswanni · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book presents life in North Korea through the eyes of six North Korean defectors; a teacher, doctor, government supporter, survivor of a labor camp, a student and his girlfriend. The main thrust of the book is daily life in North Korea and how these people eventually left the country. One shouldn’t expect a political analysis of how North Korea got this way, nor expect to learn about the political motives of its communism dictator of Kim II-sung. The history and politics surrounding North Korea is light.

For me the highlight of the book deals with the March of Tribulation famine which consumed up to three million people (10% of the population); a merger number compared to Mao’s Great Leap Forward program which consumed a possible 43 million people, but still. The author paints a grim but realistic picture of starvation through the defectors individual stories. I was struck by the creativity of making non-editable foods palatable. I knew about making flour from tree bark, but washing animal excrement to obtain undigested food put the word desperate on a new level. Then there is the teacher who watched the phases of starvation take her students one-by-one. Her guilt of not doing more was understandable. The ironic part was people started taking measures into their own hands when the government could not provide for them. They resorted to bartering goods and services which is capitalism - the exact thing the government was most fearful of.

Readers who are not history buffs should like the book. I wished there was more information about the formation of North Korea, and why the population accepted this repressive government. The politics of Kim II-sung and Kim Jong-il were nimble, but perhaps that is another book entirely.

[crmass_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've read a fair amount about North Korea over the years, including a few books, but I found this book to be superior in the way the author interwove different situations together. The six people whose lives were followed gave a greater understanding of their relationships to each other and the government than some other books available on the subject. Instead of focusing on just children or prisoners, the book presents the viewpoints of: ?Mrs. Song - a pro-regime housewife, head of the block's inminban [a neighborhood watch-like group that reports to the government] ?Oak-Hee - Mrs. Song's rebellious daughter ?Mi-ran - an elementary school teacher; part of the "hostile class" and considered to have "tainted blood" due to her father's South Korean roots which disqualifies her from advancement in many ways ?Jun-sang - a student with Zainichi Korean ancestry and Mi-Ran's boyfriend in North Korea ?Kim Hyuck - a "wandering swallow" or street-boy whose father had committed him and his brother to an orphanage when he could no longer care for them ?Dr. Kim - a female doctor If you are looking for a book about the history of Korea, this doesn't have a lot of that, but the coverage of the 1990's (including the death of Kim Il-sung, the rise of Kim Jong-il, and the famine) is well done.

[dchaikin_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

52. Nothing to Envy : Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demickpublished: December 2009format: 315 page hardcoveracquired: borrowed from my library read: Aug 17-20rating: 5 starsIt's very strange how little we know of what is happening inside North Korea. Demick provided a rare view in through the personal stories of six defectors. These are amazing stories of a very strange place, a real-world [1984] where the ruler is presented as a god, and his son and successor as the son of god. Where everyone watches everyone, and a well liked person can get in trouble for stating out loud the slightest criticism of the government. It's a country so closed off that the best and brightest and most supported students have never used the internet. North Korea is off the grid.But, this Orwellian world collapsed. After the Soviet Union dissolved, it stopped financially supporting North Korea, and the country, far from self-sufficient, began an economic collapse and then an all-out starvation throughout the 1990's. You might have heard something about this, along the lines of President Clinton frustrated North Korea refused to shut down it's nuclear weapons program in return for foreign aid. But, with such a closed off country, there was no real coverage, there were no visuals, no striking dramatic pictures. I have to admit I missed the whole famine. All of North Korea was starving, perhaps 2 million of a the 23 million population died, and some 40% of the children of that period have life-long symptoms related to starvation. I had no idea. And yet the power structure did not waver. North Korea remains, along with Cuba, the last of the communist holdouts.For such a well reviewed book, there is not much I can add to the picture. I am surprised both at how little information Demick was able to present, and how much she made out of it. An oddity of North Korea's famine is that there were no refugees. It's not that hard to get to China if one is desperate enough, but the numbers of Koreans trickling through was pretty small, and, for various reasons, the numbers welcomed to South Korea, whose official policy is to welcome North Koreans as fellow countrymen, is minuscule. A couple hundred a year through the 1990's, and maybe a couple thousand a year through the early 2000's. These are all Demick was able to interview, and, for these stories, she only interviewed 100 people. Of course, she only presents six life stories. But what lives.

[bezoar44 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Working from interviews with North Korean defectors, author Barbara Demick constructs a harrowing, ground-level account of how North Korea descended into misery in the 1990s following the breakup of the Soviet Union. The book makes for fascinating reading, on a couple levels. First, she tells her subjects' stories well; you feel sympathy, concern, vicarious fear, and rare triumph as each of them makes their way through the last 20 years (and some eventually escape to South Korea). Second, Demick draws striking lessons out of the stories: generous people died sooner in North Korea's dreadful famines; many of the survivors did things to stay alive for which they now feel guilty, such as not sharing food with neighbors who later died; even in the midst of social collapse, love and friendship can blossom; even if the place you are escaping from is dreadful, it's hard to adjust as an emigre. I didn't find that reading this book tore me up emotionally, but it did leave me questioning our lack of a global capacity to save people from the colossally incompetent totalitarian regime that governs North Korea.

[bangerlm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this book on display at the library with the theme of armchair travel. Nothing to Envy is a fascinating story of the lives of various North Korean defectors and what their daily lives were like. Demick does a great job of weaving the stories together, and leaving your interested, curious, but not wallowing in sadness, though there were parts in the middle that were pretty tough to read. I will look into reading more of Demick's work.

[apenny72 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Journalist Barbara Demick has compiled her interviews with North Korean defectors living in South Korea to paint a picture of what it was like to live in this notoriously secluded communist nation following the Korean Civil War. The human toll of the famine of the 1990s hit an emotional nerve in the context of the individual tragedies experienced by the book's subjects. I was struck by how the circumstances that lead her subjects to seek refuge seemed appallingly desperate and yet the people she interviewed still felt a twinge of guilt for the family and friends they left behind. She begins and ends her account with the most charming love story between two teenagers that persisted even though the darkest of times until the devastation of economic deprivation became too much. Reality finally pierced the veil of propaganda woven by their callous dictator and the urge to survive overcame even the tender romance of young love.

[thewestwing-864351 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Definitely the best book on the realities of the situation in North Korea I've read. Read it in a day as I was so fascinated by the people's stories and their description of every day life. A sobering but brilliant read.

[fmclellan-29530 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing book about a nearly unbelievable place. I hope, in view of Kim Jong-Il's death today, that Barbara Demick will get a huge amount of well-deserved attention!

[renbedell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An incredible viewpoint of North Korea during 1950s to 1990s of 6 Koreans telling their life story. The author also does a great job of including historical information to give a good understanding of what life would be like in North Korea at this time. I found it very interesting and the stories to be riveting. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

[katyefk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wow! What a horrible life folks live in North Korea and all because of one sick dictator and his lemmings. He and they should be charged and convicted with crimes against humanity. it was an upsetting book to read.

[multiplexer-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Nothing to Envy" is the most depressing book in the world.

Following the lives of six ex-pat North Koreans who, through luck and perseverance, managed to get out through China and to South Korea (where they are automatically citizens), "Nothing to Envy" chronicles the rise and fall of the last Soviet Communist State who has managed, somehow, to hang on when dictators world over are falling. At first, Kim Il-Jong's make-believe Communist Paradise, established in 1958 and propped up by the Russians, looked like a Korean Miracle. Built on top of left behind Japanese trains, electrical lines, factories, and roads, the Communist experiment looked, from the outside, to actually work: the per capita of those in North Korea was higher than South Korea as South Korea went through its post-Korean War growing pangs. Sure everyone in North Korea was pigeon-holed based on the allegiances of their grandparents and their opportunities in life granted or removed based on some superficial caste almost as harsh as found in India, but the people were fed, everyone had health care, people had jobs and school, and the trains ran on time.

Then three things happened: the Soviet Union fell, Kim Il-Jong died, and Deng Xiaoping's capitalist reforms in China caused China's economy to rapidly expand. North Korea never was anything more than a puppet state; it never made or sold anything itself. The moment the money dried up and North Korea's allies became more interested in money than a Communist experiment, North Korea began to starve. Everyone starved. Hundreds of thousands died. And the government never relented to feed its people, all for ideology.

The six very personal stories chronicles the period of intense starvation and the re-discovery of capitalist markets in North Korea from 1991 to the present day. All of the people featured in the book, some young and some old enough to remember the Korean War, are all survivors, tough enough to survive the famines, cross the border into China, and sneak all the way to South Korea. "Nothing to Envy" chronicles extreme poverty under crushing 1984 conditions where, even while starving, a stray word against the government meant a trip to the Gulag. Televisions are fixed to only one TV station, radios only get the North Korean State station (but easy to hack), cellphones banned, no computers, and the people are sealed in a hermetic bubble. It doesn't matter, though: electricity is so rare people steal the copper out of the power lines to sell for black market rice. The electricity hasn't been on in twenty years. Cities crumble, trains die on the tracks, and the factories sit idle. There aren't any cars. North Korea is a wasteland.

After reading this book, it's unclear how reunification would work. North Korea is a poverty-stricken nation stuck in the 1960s and reunification would mean retraining some 23 million people in how to exist in the 21st century. Estimates are between $800 billion and $1.3 trillion to rebuild North Korea to a livable, workable standard. It's not the de-brainwashing as much as the sheer rebuilding.

"Nothing to Envy" is a very sad book about a very sad place run by a madman who would rather his country be ideologically pure than his people eat. It's unlikely North Korea will survive another change of hands considering how China is leaking in over the northern border and running North Korea's black markets -- the only source of food they have. But when it does happen, it will be a real mess. North Korea is a humanitarian disaster.

Recommended for anyone interested in what life is like in North Korea.

[cassprout · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent.

[064-699196 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book presents a glimpse behind the curtains of the enigmatic DPRK. It's a really dark read but such is the nature of life over there.

[daltonlp · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've read dozens of articles about the DPRK. None of the descriptions and explanations made any fundamental sense. This book makes actual, terrible sense.

[dele2451 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A humanized look into the inhumane treatment of an entire country by its own leadership resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of North Korean citizens and the stunting of many more due to long-term malnutrition. An important read.