The Red Years
- 208 pages
- 8 hours of reading
Authored by one of North Korea's most acclaimed dissident writers, this is the first collection of Bandi's poetry to be published in English.
Bandi Book order
Bandi, Korean for "Firefly," is the pseudonym of a North Korean author whose work delves into the oppressive realities of his homeland. Writing under intense scrutiny, Bandi's texts illuminate the profound despair and resilience of those living within a totalitarian system. His literary output serves as a crucial, albeit dangerous, testament to the human spirit enduring hardship. Through his prose, Bandi offers a rare and vital glimpse into a world rarely seen, making his voice a powerful symbol of quiet defiance.
- 2019
- 2017
In 1989, a North Korean dissident writer, known to us only by the pseudonym Bandi, began to write a series of stories about life under Kim Il-sung's totalitarian regime. Smuggled out of North Korea and set for publication around the world in 2017, The Accusation provides a unique and shocking window on this most secretive of countries. Bandi's profound, deeply moving, vividly characterised stories tell of ordinary men and women facing the terrible absurdity of daily life in North Korea: a factory supervisor caught between loyalty to an old friend and loyalty to the Party; a woman struggling to feed her husband through the great famine; the staunch Party man whose actor son reveals to him the absurd theatre of their reality; the mother raising her child in a world where the all-pervasive propaganda is the very stuff of childhood nightmare. The Accusation is a heartbreaking portrayal of the realities of life in North Korea. It is also a reminder that humanity can sustain hope even in the most desperate of circumstances - and that the courage of free thought has a power far beyond those seek to suppress it.
