Summary of Hyeonseo Lee & David John's The Girl with Seven Names

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 In 1977, a young woman from Hyesan traveled to Pyongyang to visit her brother. She was invited to join the officers in playing games to pass the time, and she sang a song for the passengers. She was taken with the officer’s military bearing and self-assurance.

#2 My mother was in love with my father, and they began writing to each other every week. One night, six months later, my father arrived at her house to ask her to marry him. She accepted with tears of happiness, and both his and hers were in good songbun.

#3 Songbun is a caste system in North Korea that determines a person’s life and the lives of their children. It was created by the new communist state, and it was very easy to sink, but very difficult to rise in the system.

#4 My mother’s blissful year was turned into a nightmare when her grandmother refused to give permission for the marriage. My mother was forced to break off relations with my father, who said little in return.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669357681

IRB Media

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Insights on Hyeonseo Lee & David John's The Girl with Seven Names

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In 1977, a young woman from Hyesan traveled to Pyongyang to visit her brother. She was invited to join the officers in playing games to pass the time, and she sang a song for the passengers. She was taken with the officer’s military bearing and self-assurance.

#2

My mother was in love with my father, and they began writing to each other every week. One night, six months later, my father arrived at her house to ask her to marry him. She accepted with tears of happiness, and both his and hers were in good songbun.

#3

Songbun is a caste system in North Korea that determines a person’s life and the lives of their children. It was created by the new communist state, and it was very easy to sink, but very difficult to rise in the system.

#4

My mother’s blissful year was turned into a nightmare when her grandmother refused to give permission for the marriage. My mother was forced to break off relations with my father, who said little in return.

#5

My mother married the official from Pyongyang in 1979. She was born and raised in Hyesan, a small town in the northeast of the country. She could not live with him, and left him just after I was born. In the Korean way of measuring age, a child is one year old at the beginning of its first year and not at the end.

#6

I was four years old when my identity was changed the second time, just after my parents married. My new name was Park Min-young. The wedding was a quiet affair in Hyesan. My mother wore a smart dress suit. My father wore his uniform. His parents made little effort to hide their disapproving faces from my mother’s family.

#7

I grew up in Hyesan, a city near the Chinese border, and remember the dress I was wearing when I was nearly hit by a train. I was laughing. There were now many people on the bank. My mother was among them.

#8

I had eight siblings, four sisters and four brothers. My mother was one of the eight siblings. She was very superstitious, and would repeat the saying, Never go down there, whenever I was