Hyeonseo Lee - The Girl with Seven Names

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com

First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2015

This William Collins paperback edition published 2016

Copyright © Hyeonseo Lee 2015

Hyeonseo Lee asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Maps by John Gilkes

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007554850

Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780007554867

Version: 2020-02-26

‘Stirring and brave … true, committed, unvarnished and honest. Lee has made her own life the keyhole to the present, inside and outside of North Korea’ Scotsman

‘Remarkable bravery fluently recounted’ Kirkus

‘Hyeonseo Lee brought the human consequences of global inaction on North Korea to the world’s doorstep … Against all odds she escaped, survived, and had the courage to speak out’

Samantha Power, US representative to the United Nations

‘I have spoken with countless numbers of defectors over the years. When I first met Hyeonseo Lee, the unflinching manner in which she told her story, although full of sadness and hurt, was inspirational. That is the story now written in this book … Every time she navigated treach­erous terrain and overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles, she had to change her name to protect her new identity. She became the Girl with Seven Names … But one thing that she held on to was her humanity, ever stronger as she continuously sublimated her hardships into hope’

Jang Jin-sung, founder of New Focus International and author of Dear Leader : Poet, Spy, Escapee – A Look Inside North Korea

‘This is a powerful story of an escapee from North Korea. In the hallowed meeting rooms of the United Nations in New York, ambas­sadors from North Korea recently sought to shout down stories like this. But these voices will not be silenced. Eventually freedom will be restored. History will vindicate Hyeonseo Lee and those like her for the risks they ran so that their bodies and their minds could be free. And so that we could know the truth’

The Honourable Michael Kirby, Chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Abuses in North Korea, 2013–14

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

PRAISE

MAPS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

Part One: The Greatest Nation on Earth

1. A train through the mountains

2. The city at the edge of the world

3. The eyes on the wall

4. The lady in black

5. The man beneath the bridge

6. The red shoes

7. Boomtown

8. The secret photograph

9. To be a good communist

10. ‘Rocky island’

11. ‘The house is cursed’

12. Tragedy at the bridge

13. Sunlight on dark water

14. ‘The great heart has stopped beating’

15. Girlfriend of a hoodlum

16. ‘By the time you read this, the five of us will no longer exist in this world’

17. The lights of Changbai

18. Over the ice

Part Two: To the Heart of the Dragon

19. A Visit to Mr Ahn

20. Home truths

21. The suitor

22. The wedding trap

23. Shenyang girl

24. Guilt call

25. The men from the South

26. Interrogation

27. The plan

28. The gang

29. The comfort of moonlight

30. The biggest, brashest city in Asia

31. Career woman

32. A connection to Hyesan

33. The teddy-bear conversations

34. The tormenting of Min-ho

35. The love shock

36. Destination Seoul

Part Three: Journey into Darkness

37. ‘Welcome to Korea’

38. The women

39. House of Unity

40. The learning race

41. Waiting for

42. A place of ghosts and wild dogs

43. An impossible dilemma

44. Journey into night

45. Under a vast Asian sky

46. Lost in Laos

47. Whatever it takes

48. The kindness of strangers

49. Shuttle diplomacy

50. Long wait for freedom

51. A series of small miracles

52. ‘I am prepared to die’

53. The beauty of a free mind

EPILOGUE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PICTURE SECTION

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

To protect relatives and friends still in North Korea, I have changed some names in this book and withheld other details. Otherwise, all the events described happened as I remembered or was told about them.

Long Beach, California

My name is Hyeonseo Lee.

It is not the name I was born with, nor one of the names forced on me, at different times, by circumstance. But it is the one I gave myself, once I’d reached freedom. Hyeon means sunshine. Seo means good fortune. I chose it so that I would live my life in light and warmth, and not return to the shadow.

I am standing in the wings of a large stage, listening to the hundreds of people in the auditorium. A woman has just blushed my face with a soft brush and a microphone is being attached to me. I worry that it will pick up the sound of my heart, which is thumping in my ears. Someone asks me if I’m ready.

‘I’m ready,’ I say, though I do not feel it.

The next thing I know I’m hearing an amplified announcement. A voice is saying my name. I am being introduced.

A noise like the sea rises in the auditorium. Many hands are clapping. My nerves begin to flutter wildly.

I’m stepping onto the stage.

I feel terrified suddenly. My legs have turned to paper. The spotlights are faraway suns, dazzling me. I can’t make out any faces in the audience.

Somehow I motion my body toward the centre of the stage. I inhale slowly to steady my breathing, and swallow hard.

This is the first time I will tell my story in English, a language still new to me. The journey to this moment has been a long one.

The audience is silent.

I begin to speak.

I hear my voice trembling. I’m telling them about the girl who grew up believing her nation to be the greatest on earth, and who witnessed her first public execution at the age of seven. I’m telling them about the night she fled across a frozen river, and how she realized, too late, that she could never go home to her family. I describe the consequences of that night and the terrible events that followed, years later.