Short Story Collection Smuggled out of North Korea

It appears that North Korea has its very own Banksy; only this artist’s medium of choice is words and he faces a far worse punishment than mere prison time if ever their true identity is uncovered.

North Korean dissident ‘Bandi’ has somehow managed to smuggle out a collection of short stories which have been picked up and marketed by literary agent Barbara Zitwer who has been inundated with requests for the book from around the world.

North Korea is a notoriously closed country with those daring to attempt to defect or defy the laws of the despotic leader Kim Jong-un facing swift and immediate punishments.  The fact that anyone dared write fictional stories based on the more negative aspects of life in the highly controlled environment of North Korea, let alone managed to smuggle those stories out of the dictatorship borders on insanity and as you might imagine, the entire world wants to read what life is truly like when there are no cameras filming or soldiers watching over those who are reporting.

The short story collection titled The Accusation has already had pre-emptive orders from the US and UK with Germany, Israel, Sweden, and Italy also close to completing deals with Ms Zitwer and looks to be one of this year’s best sellers across the globe.
Stating that she has barely left her desk since announcing the publication of Bandi’s book Ms Zitwer said it was “unheard of until now” to find a work of fiction from North Korea; adding “I have been working with Korean literature for more than 10 years and I have never come across anything like Bandi. And what is especially incredible is that the author is living in the north and has not left,” .

Of the stories themselves she says “The stories depict the everyday lives of various characters living in North Korea – they are personal stories that illuminate the umbrella of horror that North Koreans live under all the time. They are the voices of mothers and sons, fathers and brothers, sisters and aunts,”
She continues, with an insight into one specific tale about a mother whose baby is frightened by the huge face of Karl Marx displayed on a poster outside their window; she closes the blinds to soothe the child and thinks nothing of it. However later that day a government official knocks the door to enquire why her blinds are closed to the glorious poster image.

“Within a few hours, however, the husband returns home and is scared to death that his wife was honest and shortly thereafter, guards come to take the mother, father and baby out of their home and they are put on a train to somewhere we can only imagine,” said Zitwer. “As I read the story, I felt the mother’s tender love for her baby – it is a story of a mother and her child, but pervading every molecule is the terror of the North Korean regime.

“I thought the baby would be killed right there. The story was the most terrifying because the life depicted is an average day for a North Korean family. Our worst nightmares are their everyday lives. Even the unimaginable horrors are daily occurrences.”

The author has been compared to the Soviet writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his dissident writings about the Soviet Union as was and these snippets of hidden lives look as though they will be extremely popular indeed. I know I will be keeping an eye out for any publication dates.