The girl with seven names

15.50

Title: A Girl with Seven Names (Escape from North Korea)

Author: Hyun Seoul

Translator: Elahe Alavi

Publisher: Backpack

Subject: Escape, Immigration, North Korea, Autobiography

Age category: Adult

Cover: Paperback

Number of pages: 432 p

Language: Farsi

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Description

Hyun Seo Lee, The Girl with the Seven Names of Escape from North Korea, is an extraordinary look at life in one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships and the story of a woman’s terrifying struggle to escape arrest and free her family.

The Girl with Seven Names was published in 2015 and soon became one of the New York Times bestsellers. He was also nominated for a Best Autobiography Award by Goodreads that same year.

Hyeonseo Lee, who spent his childhood in North Korea, was one of millions trapped by the communist secretive and oppressive regime.
His childhood home on the Chinese border placed him in a state beyond the borders of his own country, and when the famine of the 1990s struck, he began to think, question, and realize that he had been brainwashed all his life. Given the poverty and misery of those around him, he realized that his country could not be, as they put it, “the best country on earth.”

When he reached the age of seventeen, he decided to flee North Korea. It did not occur to him that he would have to wait twelve years to be with his family again.

Hyun Seo Li says about this work:

“The story I am telling is not a strange one for people like me who were born and fled in North Korea. But I can see the impact on the people present at this conference. They are shocked. They probably ask themselves why such a country still exists in the world.

It may be even harder for them to understand how I still love and miss my country, for its snowy mountains, for the smell of kerosene and coal, for my childhood, for my father’s safe embrace and for sleeping on warm floors.

It is true that my new life is comfortable, but I am still a girl from Hisan who wishes to eat noodles with her family in their favorite restaurant. I miss my bike, and the view of the river that goes to China.

Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any country. It is more like going to another world. No matter how far I go, its attraction will not leave me.

Even for those who have suffered so much in that country and escaped from hell, living in a free world can be so difficult that they struggle to cope with it and find happiness.

Some of them even give up and go back to living in that dark place – just like myself when I was tempted to go back, that too many times.

But the fact is that I can not go back. It is true that I dream of my country’s freedom, but North Korea is still, as always, a closed and oppressive country after many years, and if the time comes when I can return to it safely, I will probably be a stranger in my own country. .

Now that I read this book, I see that this is the story of my awakening, the story of a long and difficult maturity. I have come to realize the fact that as a fugitive from North Korea, I am considered an outsider in the world, an exile.
No matter how hard I try to adapt to South Korean society, I still do not think I will be fully accepted as a South Korean citizen.

More importantly, I do not accept this identity myself. I went to South Korea too late, at the age of twenty-eight. The easiest way to solve my identity problem is to say I am Korean. But there is no such country. “There is no single planet.”

In a part of the book, a girl with seven names reads:

I woke up to the sound of my mother crying. Minho, my little brother, was still asleep on the floor next to me. Suddenly my father rushed into the room and shouted, “Wake up, Shin!”

He grabbed our hands, gave us a hug, and kicked us out of the room. My mother was behind her and she was trembling like a willow. The sky was clear. It was getting dark and the air was getting dark. Minho was still asleep.

We went to the street and turned our heads towards the house. All that could be seen was the black smoke coming out of the kitchen window and the black flames burning through the walls outside the house.

To my surprise, I saw my father return home in a hurry.
A strange roar was heard from inside the house, like a storm. Sounds like a canvas. The tiles of one part of the roof collapsed, and a bullet of fire was thrown into the sky like an orange flower of sand, illuminating the street. One part of the house was engulfed in flames, and thick black smoke billowed from the rest of the windows.

Where was my father?
In the blink of an eye, all the neighbors gathered around us. Someone was pouring water with a bucket on the fire – as if to contain the fire. The sound of rattling and the breaking of all the sticks was heard, and then the whole roof caught fire.

I was not crying. I did not even breathe. Why didn’t my father come out of the house?

It may have only been a few seconds, but it lasted like a few hours. Suddenly he came out of the house and ran towards us. He was coughing badly. His whole body was black from the smoke, and his face shone with oil. There were two rectangular frames in each hand.

Excerpts from the book Girl with Seven Names (text pleasure)
The story I am telling is not a strange one for people like me who were born and fled in North Korea. But I can see the impact on the people present at this conference. Are shocked. They probably ask themselves why there is still such a country in the world.

It may be harder for them to understand how I still love and miss my country, its snowy mountains, the smell of kerosene and coal, my childhood, my father’s safe embrace and sleeping on the warm floor. .

It is true that my new life is comfortable, but I am still a girl from Hisan who wishes to eat noodles with her family in their favorite restaurant. I miss my bike, and the view of the river that goes to China.

Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any country. It is more like going to another world. No matter how far I go from it, its attraction will not leave me.
Even for those who have suffered a lot in that country and escaped from hell, living in a free world can be so difficult that they struggle to cope with it and find happiness. Some of them even give up and go back to living in that dark place – just like I was tempted to go back to, many times.

But the fact is that I can not go back. It is true that I dream of my country’s freedom, but North Korea is still, as always, a closed and oppressive country after many years, and if the time comes when I can return to it safely, it will probably be a stranger in my own country. I will be.

I woke up to the sound of my mother crying. Min Ho, my little brother, was still asleep on the floor next to me. Suddenly my father rushed into the room and shouted, “Wake up, Shin!” He took our hands, gave us helmets and kicked us out of the room. My mother was behind her, trembling like a willow. The sky was clear. It was evening and the air was getting dark. Min Ho was still asleep. We went to the street and turned our heads towards the house. All that could be seen was the black smoke coming out of the kitchen window and the black flames burning through the walls outside the house.

هیئون‌ سئو لی
Birth: Lee Hyeon Seo (Korean: 이현., Born January 1980), best known for her book The Girl with Seven Names.

He is a North Korean thinker and activist who lives in Seoul, South Korea, where he is a student. He fled North Korea and then led his family from North Korea via China and Laos.

His book “A Girl with Seven Names: Escape from North Korea” has been translated into Persian and published by Backpack Book Publishing.

Related books

1- Introducing the book  on YouTube

2- Introducing the book  in Aparat

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