Yeonmi Park grew up in North Korea, where starvation was a daily threat and her mother constantly warned her to be careful because even mice and birds have ears.
Photo: Supplied/ Penguin Press
At age 13, she and her mother escaped to China where they were at the mercy of human traffickers.
Eventually, after a four day journey across the frozen Gobi desert, she and her Mother made it to safety in South Korea.
Park is now a human rights advocate.
She tells her story in a new book called In Order To Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom
Park grew up in North Korea, but didn’t realize the extent of the nation’s privation and repression until her father, a civil servant, was arrested for smuggling.
The family soon lost its relatively privileged status and, facing starvation, Park and her mother escaped to the South.
Her memoir is a harrowing account of the long journey through China and Mongolia at the mercy of human traffickers.
Today, Park is a human rights advocate and a leader of young Korean dissidents.
She talks to Afternoons about her new book.
