Book Bearings
Cover of In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park

In Order to Live

  • 304 pages · about 5 hours
  • First published 2015
  • 13 editions

Bookshop.org links may earn us a commission. It supports independent bookstores and costs you nothing.

1 About this book

'I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.' Yeonmi Park was not dreaming of freedom when she escaped from North Korea. She didn't even know what it meant to be free.

All she knew was that she was running for her life, that if she and her family stayed behind they would die--from starvation, or disease, or even execution.

This book is the story of Park's struggle to survive in the darkest, most repressive country on earth; her harrowing escape through China's underworld of smugglers and human traffickers; and then her escape from China across the Gobi desert to Mongolia, with only the stars to guide her way, and from there to South Korea and at last to freedom; and finally her emergence as a leading human rights activist--all before her 21st birthday.

Good for readers who want: a true life story, politics, and history.

  • Korea, biography
  • Women, biography
  • Korea, politics and government
  • Korea, history
  • Biography
  • Politics and government
  • History
  • Biography & autobiography

2 About Yeonmi Park

Born 1993

Yeonmi Park (Korean: 박연미; born October 4, 1993) is an American conservative activist and author. Born in North Korea, she defected from the country and was described by The Washington Post as "one of the most famous North Korean defectors in the world". Born in Hyesan, Park fled from North Korea to China in 2007 at age 13 before moving to South Korea, then to the United States.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

3 Similar books

Find a book that fits your moment