A Hard Freedom The Dreams and Trauma of North Korean Refugees

The few North Koreans who manage to cross the border to China risk arrest, repatriation, and incarceration in a North Korean prison camps for the "crime" of having left their country. Or, if they are lucky, they find their way to Dan Chung, an American Christian who has been secretly helping North Korean refugees in China for more than 20 years. "A Hard Freedom" is Dan's gripping memoir of his dangerous work with the world's most oppressed people as they learn how to survive outside the Orwellian constraints of their homeland, where citizens' every move is determined by the state. The individual trauma of these escapees foreshadows the difficulties inherent in any reunification of the two Koreas. Melanie Kirkpatrick, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia's Underground Railroad