NORTH KOREA: The Girl With Seven Names - Hyeon Seo Lee

An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.

As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life.

Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?

This is going to be a fascinating read. I've always been interested in North Korea and how things work there. Swapna and I both have an affinity for Korean dramas - and one of my personal favorites was Crash Landing On You - a romance about a South Korean business woman who gets 'blown' over the border into No Man's Land and is rescued by a North Korean soldier who helps her get back to her country. I don't know about the accuracy of the depiction, but it was fascinating to see what North Korea is presented as. It's on Netflix, for anyone who wants to have a look at it.