Name: Under the Same Sky
ISBN: 9780544373174

Stephan Talty

Joseph Kim

A man who escaped the devastating famine in North Korea, despite being abandoned as a boy, tells the story of his survival inside the oppressive country, his escape and subsequent rescue by activists and Christian missionaries and his success in the United States thanks to a newfound faith and courage. 50,000 first printing.

From Starvation in North Korea to Salvation in America

Under the Same Sky

Eva Ströberg

There are so many North Korean memoirs out there in the market, and this is one of them.
The difference is that this one is made from the perspective of a child, who lost his family, one by one, due to famine, poverty and other factors that made him homeless, had to scavenge, became a thief, a thug in order to survive.

Joseph Kim told his story how it was to grow up in Hoeryong, a border town in the northern part of North Korea, where he used to have a normal family, with a dad, mom and a sister, a house and a comfortable life where he and the sister went to school, where mom used to make his favourite corn pancake, until he became one of the street kids and had to steal in order to fend for himself.

It's hard to relate that the timeline happening in the book was from the late 90s to the early 2000s, his story threw us back in the dark ages, where hardly anyone had a television (let alone mobile phone or computer), or colourful clothings. It was all about how to survive.

You could question the truth of the story, since nobody could compare to what it was like in North Korea, but nonetheless, this was a difficult story to read. A profound, but still difficult story to read without getting all emotional about this.

Under the Same Sky From Starvation in North Korea to Salvation in America