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A river in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea is the memoir of Masaji Ishikawa, a half-Korean half-Japanese man whose family left Japan to move to North Korea, hoping to find a better life.

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When you’re starving to death, you lose all the fat from your lips and nose. Once your lips disappear, your teeth are bared all the time, like a snarling dog. Your nose is reduced to a pair of nostrils. I wish desperately that I didn’t know these things, but I do.

Masaji Ishikawa

A RIVER IN DARKNESS BOOK REVIEW IN SHORT

A river in Darkness is truly devastating. Revolting, inspiring, eye-opening, but so devastating.

The contrast between the world of this book and my world really made me put things into perspective. I know it won’t last because humans are made like that, we’ll always find problems and reasons to complain no matter how small and insignificant they are. And I also know that pain, discomfort -and all that- is a matter of scale: you didn’t think you could suffer more until you do.

But at some point, I really, too, started to feel hopeless for him. It’s really hard to believe how much misery and pain he went through, as well as lots of other people like him, there or somewhere else, then or during other periods of time. Even if I knew from the start -from the title of the book- that he’ll make it, that he’ll escape, I never stopped to be worried for him. And the end is not even that predictable or that simple. This book broke my heart.

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HOW I PICKED A RIVER IN DARKNESS

I finally dived into the Kindle world and decided to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, I was SO excited! After having waited to finish all the paper books on my tbr list, I eventually wanted to read my first book on my brand new Kindle.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to realize that none of the two books that I was dying to read (‘We should all be feminists’ & ‘I know why the caged bird sings’) were not included in Kindle Unlimited… But how little did I know about real disappointment before reading this book.

After some (long) minutes browsing the catalogue, I finally found A River In Darkness, Masaji Ishikawa’s memoir. The testimony of a man who escaped from North Korea and a rating over 4/5? I didn’t need to know much more to start reading it.

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN

The link between Koreans and Japan: the Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945)

• Forced work in Japanese factories, human shields on the battlefield, sexual slaves, obliged to change their name to a Japanese one… After the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945 (end of World War II), some Koreans remained in the place they had always known: Japan. Korea was then divided into zones of occupation by those who had won: the Americans and Soviets. But no agreement was found by both major occupiers, which led in 1948 to the creation of two separate governments: the Republic of Korea in Seoul, in the American zone, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Pyongyang, in the Soviet zone.

The complexity of not belonging in a country that is not yours and doesn’t consider you equal

• The Koreans who were in Japan after the end of the Japanese colonial rule were still feeling the weight of this rough period. They were discriminated against, considered inferiors, rejected, in the grip of violence.
• In A River in Darkness, Masaji Ishikawa explains how his father never seemed to belong in Japan. He describes how his father was before recognized among The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan for the (violent) help he brought to Koreans so that they could be respected by Japanese, and how he then lost his usefulness when the association was deemed a terrorist group. The author also confesses that his father was and felt Korean, which made him fall for the lies about this ‘North Korean paradise’. Even if he was originally from the southern part of Korea, he maybe just wanted to finally belong somewhere.

The Japanese defeat in World War II left 2.4 million Koreans stranded in Japan. They belonged to neither the winning nor the losing side, and they had no place to go. Once freed, they were simply thrown onto the streets. Desperate and impoverished, with no way to make a living (…) Even those who’d never been violent before had little choice but to turn into outlaws.

Masaji Ishikawa

The mass “repatriation“, a win-win situation

• The mass “repatriation” of Koreans -mostly (97%) from the southern part of Korea-  to North Korea was led by the Japanese Red Cross and The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan and was officially supported by both governments.

After Kim Il-sung’s statement, the General Association of Korean Residents started a mass repatriation campaign in the guise of humanitarianism. The following year, 1959, the Japanese Red Cross Society and the Korean Red Cross Society secretly negotiated a “Return Agreement” in Calcutta. (…) Did the International Committee of the Red Cross know anything about this? Did the United States? The UN? Yes, yes, and yes. And what did they do about it? Nothing.

Masaji Ishikawa

• The worst part? It sadly made total sense for both countries, it was a win-win situation: unwanted ethnic minority residents VS a mass of new workers.

During the period of the Japanese Empire, thousands upon thousands of Koreans had been brought to Japan against their will to serve as slave labourers and, later, cannon fodder. Now, the government was afraid that these Koreans and their families, discriminated against and poverty-stricken in the postwar years, might become a source of social unrest. Sending them back to Korea was a solution to a problem. Nothing more. From the North Korean government’s point of view, their country desperately needed rebuilding after the Korean War. What could be more convenient than an influx of workers?

Masaji Ishikawa

The famine that struck North Korea in the mid-1990s

• This terrible and giantess famine affected the 25 million-person country due to poor planning, autarky and a misguided policy of self-sufficiency. Masaji Ishikawa explains how farmers were forced to plant rice a certain way even if they knew it was wrong or at least saw that the results were very bad, how people started to die in the streets, how many children became orphans, how stories of cannibalism started to spread, how they knew they were dying.

What complete autarky really is

• How can it possibly feel to ignore everything about the world outside of your country? Or only the country next to you? How can it be to even ignore if others are really starving like you or if people a few thousand km away live in a modernized world that you don’t even suspect? When you’ve always been prevented from having your own thoughts, and even when you haven’t, you have no choice but to believe what your government tells you. You have no other version than the official version, what your leaders want you to believe, the propaganda.

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WHAT DID I GET OUT OF THIS BOOK?

• How hard it is to grasp the idea of something you’ve never known (In this book: freedom of speech, among so many other things that we take for granted)
• How stereotypes sometimes go away if you try picturing what it’s like to be those persons you judge
• Mope around will only make it worse, get the best from it instead or fight for it. Look forward, not backward (In this book: Not letting himself die)

This last point really echoes my life philosophy.  What can you do when your world is falling apart and there doesn’t seem to be anything that could stop it? Certainly not mope around.

You don’t choose to be born. You just are. And your birth is your destiny, some say. I say the hell with that. (…) Sometimes in life, you have to grab your so-called destiny by the throat and wring its neck.

Masaji Ishikawa

It goes beyond ‘Don’t give up, keep fighting’. It’s really about asking yourself how you could change the way you see what’s happening to you and turning it in an opportunity.

If you’ve read it, what did YOU get out of A River in Darkness? Did you enjoy reading this book review? Leave a comment below, or reach me on Instagram @just.another.good.story or by email at justanothergoodstory@gmail.com

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BONUS

One sentence in French about A River in Darkness that you can learn by heart to show off:
“L'histoire d'une vie emplie de misère et de déception. Un récit qui vous prend aux tripes.“

Post an Instagram story of you saying this sentence with your best French accent and tag me! I’ll watch and repost every single one of them!
Or simply leave me a comment telling me using Google translate how you would translate this sentence. As a French living in the UK with an Italian guy, I’m an expert at giving a completely different sense to what people say. Let me read what your brain made up!

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I really hope that you enjoyed reading this book review!
Interested in extremism? You can read my review of Going Dark by Julia Ebner.
Come back soon
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YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Where is Masaji Ishikawa now?

Masaji Ishikawa now lives in Japan. He keeps trying to rescue those he left behind.

What to read after A River in Darkness?

Check out my other book reviews & find the next best reading for you!