The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape From North Korea

Written by Jihyun Park and Seh-lynn Chai

Narrated by Rosa Escoda

The harrowing story of a woman who escaped famine and terror in North Korea, not once but twice.

‘A gripping, suspenseful and cathartic memoir that tells a story of pain and perseverance and makes the moral case for asylum.’ David Lammy MP

North Korea is an open-air prison from which there is no escape. Only a handful of men and women have succeeded.

Jihyun Park is one of these rare survivors. Twice she left the land of the ‘socialist miracle’ to flee famine and dictatorship.

By the age of 29 she had already witnessed a lifetime of suffering. Family members had died of starvation; her brother was beaten nearly to death by soldiers. Even smiling and laughing was discouraged.

The first time she ran, she was forced abandon her father on his deathbed – crossing the border under a hail of bullets. In China she was sold to a farmer, with whom she had a son, before being denounced and forcibly returned to North Korea.

Six months later guards abandoned her, injured, outside a prison camp. She recovered and returned China to seek her son, now six, before attempting to navigate the long, hard road through the Gobi Desert and into Mongolia.

Clear-eyed and resolute, Jihyun’s extraordinary story reveals a Korea far removed from the talk of nuclear weapons and economic sanctions. She remains sanguine despite the hardship. Recalling life’s tiny pleasures even at her darkest moments, she manages to instill her tale with incredible grace and humanity.

Beautifully written with South Korean compatriot Seh-lynn Chai, this compelling book offers a stark lesson in determination, and ultimately in the importance of asylum.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Translator: Sarah Baldwin
• Release date: May 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9780008541439

Jihyun Park

Jihyun Park was born in Chongjin, North Korea, in 1968. She experienced acute poverty, famine, illness, and intimidation. She first escaped at the age of 29. After her second escape from North Korea, with the help of the UN, she was granted asylum seeker status in 2008 and moved to Bury, Greater Manchester, where she lives with her husband Kwang and three children. She has been outreach and project officer at the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea and is a human rights activist.

Reviews for The Hard Road Out

[Susan Cull · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredible, awe-inspiring story of fortitude, hope, and unchenchable determination. Highly recommended for insight into the tragedy of North Korea, the preciousness of the common Korean heritage, and the mystery of love and human relationships.

[evatkaplan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

one ex North Korean woman interviewing another. very difficult story--life in North Korea and her escape, caught into "slavery", prostitution, escape from her "husband", trying to get her child, her mother's trying to escape & sold as a "wife" to a Chinese...Harrowing story

[Mia Belle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The rawness of this story is so overwhelming. To think people here in a free country condemn her for being in the conservative party. Saying She's brainwashed, again? How bizare to speak about your troubles In a socialist society and then be side-eyed for what you choose to side with. Maybe she's seen two sides of the card and knows a thing on two.
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[michael5rimmer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jihyun Park's biography of her life in North Korea, the terrors of living in an authoritarian regime, and her "escape" into slavery after being trafficed into China, is both horrifying and inspirational. That she found asylum and a new life in Britain is wonderful, that she lost and is separated from so many family members, tragic. I'm glad she's found a haven, now, in Lancashire.Her decision to join the UK's Conservative Party and run as their local government candidate, whilst still one I feel saddened by, makes sense in the context of the suffering she experienced under the rule of notionally socialist North Korea. Her story exemplifies the need for a kinder immigration and asylum system than the one so poorly and punitively managed by the political party she represents.