- Nothing to Envy
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Nothing to Envy 
Author(s) Barbara Demick Country United States Language English Subject(s) North Korea Publisher Spiegel & Grau Publication date December 29, 2009 Pages 336pp (hardback) ISBN 0385523904 Dewey Decimal 951.93 Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea is a part-novelization (2009) of interviews with refugees from Chongjin, North Korea, written by Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick.[1] In 2010 the book was awarded the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. It was also a nonfiction finalist for the National Book Award in 2010.
The title comes from the children's theme song of the 1970 North Korean film We Have Nothing to Envy in the World (Korean: Sesang-e burom opsora 세상에 부럼 없어라).[2][3]
Demick interviewed more than 100 defectors but chose to focus on Chongjin because it is likely to be more representative than the capital Pyongyang.[4] The events covered include the famine of the 1990s, with the final chapters describing the route the main characters took to Seoul and then an epilogue describing the effects of the November 30th 2009 currency reform.
The six main characters/interviewees of the book are:
- Mrs Song - a pro-regime housewife, head of the block's inminban[5]
- Oak-Hee - Mrs Song's rebellious, yet eventually enterprising, daughter
- Mi-ran - daughter of a kaolin miner, a South Korean POW, so with bad songbun[6] disqualifying her from advancement
- Jun-sang - a student with Zainichi Korean ancestry and Mi-Ran's boyfriend in North Korea
- Kim Hyuck - a street-kid whose father commits him to an orphanage
- Dr Kim - a doctor with relatives in China
References
- ^ "Nothing to Envy". http://nothingtoenvy.com/. Retrieved 21 November 2010.
- ^ Travels in Korea Masatsugu Matsumoto - 1977 -"Before leaving for the Republic two films — the documentary New Korea (Parts 1 and 2) and the feature film We Have Nothing to Envy in the World — had been put on the screen for the first time in only one cinema house for a short time "
- ^ Korea: tradition & transformation : a history of the Korean people Andrew C. Nahm - 1996 "The lyrics of the children's song entitled "We Have Nothing to Envy in the World " reads as follows: Skies are blue .."
- ^ "Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/03/nothing-envy-korea-barbara-demick. Retrieved 21 November 2010.
- ^ wikt:인민반장 : 북한 의 사회 문화. 세종연구소. 북한연구센터 - 2006 p514 "인민 반장 은 소속 주민들 의 추천 형식 을 거쳐 시 · 귄 구역 ) 인민 위원회 에 서 지명 하며 , 대부분 직장 에 나가지 않는 ..."
- ^ wikt:출신성분제도 : 임현진 북한 의 체제 전환 과 사회 정책 의 과제 2008 page 179 "치가 등장 했고 , 이에 따라 출신 성분 에 따른 사회적 불평등 은 줄어들고 있는 것으로 보인다."
Categories:- North Korea
- Books about Korea
- Books about North Korea
- Political books
- 2009 books
- Books about famine
- North Korean defectors
- Non-fiction book stubs
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