Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom by Blaine Harden

Camp 14, one of North Korea’s many political prison camps, was Shin Dong-hyuk’s birthplace and home for 23 years until his extraordinary escape in 2005. There his context had been “an open-air cage run by men who hanged his mother, shot his brother, crippled his father, murdered pregnant women, beat children to death, taught him to betray his family, and tortured him over a fire.” Free at last, he traveled through China, South Korea, and finally to the United States. With deep compassion and compelling insight, Blaine Harden, a former correspondent for The Washington Post, narrates Shin’s story in Escape from Camp 14. He reports on North Korea’s disturbing political realities and describes efforts to help defectors as well as slave workers remaining in the camps. (Viking)