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    The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea
    The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea
    The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea

    Written by Bandi

    Narrated by David Shih

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The Accusation is a deeply moving and eye-opening work of fiction that paints a powerful portrait of life under the North Korean regime. Set during the period of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il's leadership, the seven stories that make up The Accusation give voice to people living under this most bizarre and horrifying of dictatorships. The characters of these compelling stories come from a wide variety of backgrounds, from a young mother living among the elite in Pyongyang whose son misbehaves during a political rally, to a former Communist war hero who is deeply disillusioned with the intrusion of the Party into everything he holds dear, to a husband and father who is denied a travel permit and sneaks onto a train in order to visit his critically ill mother. Written with deep emotion and writing talent, The Accusation is a vivid depiction of life in a closed-off one-party state, and also a hopeful testament to the humanity and rich internal life that persists even in such inhumane conditions.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 11, 2017
    ISBN9781541471177
    Author

    Bandi

    Bandi is the Korean word for firefly. It is the pseudonym of an anonymous dissident writer still living in North Korea.

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    Reviews for The Accusation

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      I consider this an important book. The reader gets a taste of what life is like for the population of North Korea... and it's not great. Here the party rules everything, everyone is suspicious of each other, deportation of citizens from the city to the harsh countryside can happen within the hour, and lies are constantly recycled to prop up the infallibility and wisdom of the great leader. The author gives the impression that much of the general population is aware of the facade but fear for their lives and the lives of their relatives should they speak up. These things alone make the book worth reading and remind us to keep an eye on the activities of our own governments.
    • 3/5
      Bailed at page 89. Not that it's bad, but I just couldn't seem to get into it. Moving on to other things.
    • 4/5
      This is an amazing book - one the author has risked his life to have told. You need to read it.From the Afterword:The South Korean publication of this piece of fiction, which sharply criticizes and satirizes the North Korean regime, and which is written by a man who still lives and works under that same system, is a historical first—nothing like it has emerged in the sixty-eight years since the peninsula was divided, Though memoirs and pieces of fiction by North Korean defectors, of a similarly critical tone, have indeed been published now and then, these have all been written after the authors’ escape to the free world. No work denouncing the oppressive, anti-democratic regime of North Korea, by a writer still living in North Korea, has ever been published before. Written between 1989 and 1995
    • 4/5
      This book of short stories is a compilation of work that was smuggled out of North Korea. It is the only one of it's kind, as other novels of life in NK were written by people after they had escaped. The writing is very good, tight and atmospheric. The overwhelming sense is one of fear and mistrust. Similar to life under Stalin/Mao, the regime requires strict adherence to the often glaringly false party declarations put forth by the regime. No variance to doubt is permitted and there is always someone waiting to rat you out to the authorities. One can never confess their true feelings for the regime for fear of being severely punished. People are banished for minor infractions, lives are ruined, families destroyed. Shame on one offender will follow the family line for generations. The worse off are those who fought for North Korea, who were promised a land of "milk and honey" and are feeling betrayed. They know things are not as they should be, not how they could be, and yet they have no recourse.
      It is a sad, depressing reality, even the privileged know it can all be gone in a second. While we see only the "Great Leader" and can assume things are horrible for the people of NK, the reality of their lives is much much worse. Still, there is beautiful writing, sympathetic characters and much to learn.
    • 4/5
      Stories of EnduranceAlthough the short stories in Bandi's "The Accusation" are presented as fiction, they probably give a sense of the real everyday life of average people in the recent past of North Korea. I'm thinking in comparison to say the more fantastical recent novel "The Orphan Master's Son" which takes a character through a wide-ranging journey from orphanages to spy-missions to prison camps and to the very top of the hierarchy.The stories are dated from 1989 to 1995 and thus take place at the end of Kim Il-sung's and the beginning of his son Kim Jong-Il's dictatorships, i.e. they take place 1 to 2 generations before the current (early 2017) rule of grandson Kim Jong-Un in the Kim dynasty. This may make it seem as if the book was out of date, but it is unlikely that conditions have changed much in the Cult of Personality state. They have actually likely gotten worse as aid from the former Soviet Union dried up upon its dissolution in 1991.Bandi's characters are drawn from a gamut of primarily regular people each of which is in a position to observe the effect of the regime on some aspect of their own, their families' or their friends' lives. It is all the more effective because of that.Bandi's biography is somewhat described in the Afterword to the book, but it is likely disguised to prevent the regime's security services from tracking him down. A book of poetry is apparently also in preparation and two examples are provided in this current volume as "In Place of a Preface" and "In Place of Acknowledgements."LinksFor more on the background of the book, see "Stranger than Fiction: How a Forbidden Book was Smuggled Out of North Korea."
    • 5/5
      I cannot overstate the importance of The Accusation by Bandi. It is possible that this is the most noteworthy work to be published this year. This is a FIRST in literary history: the first piece of dissident literary fiction to come from a writer currently living inside North Korea. Written between 1989 and 1995 (during the last years of Kim Il-sung's life and the beginning of The Arduous March)--never meant to be seen by any eyes in the author's homeland besides his own--these six stories and a poem, highlight the everyday lives of the people--from all stations--who live under these oppressive regimes. While here in the West, we've heard these kinds of stories from defectors, we have no idea what the literary tradition in North Korea looks like outside of propaganda novels, memoirs, and poetry. We simply don't know how North Korean writers craft stories, establish themes, develop characters; we don't know what are popular genres. And it is possible we may never read another word from Bandi after this. And so Deborah Smith proves once again that she is a champion translator, talented and compassionate, able to interpret the author's intent while simultaneously weaving the narratives that are compelling to Western readers. With the ability to perform such a weighty task as this one--with what is possibly someone's life's work--I would not be surprised if she won another award this year. I think this is a Nobel Prize-worthy work.
    • 4/5
      Dubbed “the Solzhenitsyn of Pyongyang,” Bandi is the pseudonym of a dissident North Korean author, and these are the first published stories written by a person still living under that repressive regime. The seven stories in this collection were written between 1989 and 1995, a particularly bleak period at the start of a severe five-year famine, when Great Leader Kim Jong-un’s grandfather and father ruled the country. Like the overlapping circles of a Venn diagram, the stories share commonalities both in the psychological challenges their protagonists face and in the external environment they must negotiate. These common themes create an indelible impression of Bandi’s world.Paranoia is prominent. A person who deviates from expectations in any way or complains about anything, significant or trivial, risks being observed, reported, and denounced. The actor in the story “On Stage” titles Act One of his satirical—and dangerous—skit: “It Hurts, Hahaha,” and Act Two: “It Tickles, Boohoo!”—to underscore how people must act according to expectations and contrary to their true feelings. This stunt, predictably, ends in disgrace. Denunciation can lead to banishment from the city to a life of extreme privation in the country, even death. But death does not end a family’s downfall. A father’s error curtails the educational and occupational prospects for his children and grandchildren, as described in the collection’s first story, “Record of a Defection,” in which a family risks everything to try to escape this collective fate. Winters are bitter, food is never plentiful, and loudspeakers harangue the population. Their constantly blaring messages from the government are full of “alternative facts.” The stories were translated by Deborah Smith, winner of the Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian. Bandi’s writing style is markedly different from that of Western fiction, with little description and with character development mainly through action and dialog. This bracing style fits material with so much implicit drama and heartache. (For a more immersive approach, you might read the richly plotted Pulitzer Prize-winning Adam Johnson novel, The Orphan Master’s Son, which also puts North Korea’s absurdities and ironies on full display.)Do Bandi’s stories give the impression that the North Korean people recognize the peculiar nature of their system and its injustices? Absolutely. And if the people are called upon to fulfill some outrageous government edict, will they break their backs trying to do so? Absolutely. The story of how the book came to be smuggled out of the country and ultimately found its way into print is an exciting tale in itself, included as an afterword. For that heroic effort alone, the book is worthy of attention. It also can’t hurt to foster greater understanding of the suffering that ensues when totalitarian leadership proceeds to its natural end-state. The North Korea Bandi describes is one Westerners may have difficulty comprehending, yet the fact that in 2017 it exists at all proves it is not impossible.
    • 4/5
      North Korea, a closed society, books and news have been filtering out in the last several years. In these seven stories, based on experiences and thoughts of the people as told to the author, we learn some of the harsh realities of living under this type of dictatorship, cut off from the rest of the world. They are as enlightening and harsh as one could imagine. The way the book made it out of North Korea, or that it even did, is amazing as is the way these stories are told. This information and more, some of the author's background is chronicled in the afterword. All of these stories serve to highlight the huge disconnect between outward emotion, thoughts, actions and internal feelings. Of being constantly watched for loyalty and love to the great leader, any independent action suspect, even those with valid reasons. Family reputation everything, of not being looked on favorably if a family member had done something, no matter how small, considered against the regime, never being able to rise above this status, for any family member, not ever. Of praising the regime for its generosity while not having enough to eat, fuel to stay warm nor even to gain permission to stay home with a sick child, visit a dying mother. Banishment to the far outreaches, internment in a work camp and even death the penalties. Horrifically unbelievable, yet it happens again and again, happens still and not just in North Korea.ARC from Netgalley.