BandiRezensionen

This is a powerful, disquieting read. These short stories, written by a member of North Korea's official writer's association, but whose identity is unknown for his own protection, was smuggled out of North Korea at huge risk in 2013.

They tell the story of ordinary people from every social class, who live with the daily risk of political ruin from an unguarded remark, gesture or action. The status of these people is determined by the political correctness of their ancestors, their living relatives. A fall from grace means exile, hard labour, or worse.

Citizens do not only have to behave correctly, they have to be seen to do so. Parks and mountainsides were despoiled following Kim-il-Sung's death in 2014 as people were required to leave flowers commemorating the dictator's demise morning, noon and night, and faced ruin for not doing so.

One man fails to obtain the necessary travel permit to visit his dying mother. Another is banished from his family to work long hours developing a soybean farm, and is indicted for anti-revolutionary crimes when the crop fails. It's even a crime if your small son bursts into tears at the sight of those ubiquitous giant posters of Stalin and Kim-il-Sung.

The style of writing is rough, jagged, raw. This book is written by a man in the grip of powerful emotion. It's not a comfortable read. But it is enlightening.

An interesting into an isolated country. Not as shocking as some of tales of escape from North Korea but sad still. Some of them 7 stories try to convey the absurd but don't go all the way.½

The only book critical of the North Korean regime written by someone still living under that regime, making this collection of short stories one of the bravest books I have ever read.

These are stories of people with ordinary problems, living under a system with absolutely zero room for humanity — for making allowances for ordinary people with their ordinary problems. Toddlers who cry. Workers who want to visit dying mothers. Someone with a parent, uncle, or grandparent who once did something to offend the party.

These feel to me similar to other stories that have come out of Communist dictatorships, and I wonder if Bandi ever had access to any of those. What is remarkable about them to me is him. Someone who was a true believer, a party loyalist, then became disillusioned, not only in his own circumstance, but seeing how the regime crushes all those around him.

I hope for his continued safety.½

Aunque repetitivas ( alguien honesto y trabajador machacado por el sistema), me ha sorprendido las historias por su calidad.
Mucha suerte y ánimo.

The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea by Bandi is a collection of short stories that take place in North Korea around the transition of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. Bandi, a pseudonym, is more of a mysterious person. He lived in North Korea and presumably still does. His writings have been smuggled out of North Korea and have been published in South Korea and France. Bandi is Korean for firefly and is shedding his little bit of light in a dark country.

Anyone who is trying to stay current on North Korea has read the recent nonfiction and quickly comes to realize how little is actually known about the country. After a few books, the reader will see the same stories repeat over again. Most of what is written about North Korea comes from defectors and their stories have been well used. Jang Jin-sung, poet laureate, and South Korea propaganda expert was the only high-level government official to defect until very recently. He offered more of an understanding of the whys of the regime rather than just the whats.

Bandi offers a selection of short stories that leave the reader wondering. The stories are fiction but fit so well with the actual conditions of the country. It is a bit like a dystopian episode of the Twilight Zone. You know it’s fiction but it feels so real. The feeling of being trapped in a nightmare is very real. From the sins of the father being carried to the next generation to the fear that something a child might do will damage your family’s position. Interestingly, there is very little about the outside enemy in this collection. There is no mention of the United States’ determination to end the worker’s paradise and there is only passing mention of the South’s propaganda being blasted over the border to the north. Everything happens inside North Korea as it works to make itself an island separate from the rest of the world.

Inside people spend their lives trying to stay within the ever shrinking lines. Loyalty is the most important thing. One man’s son cracks to his father, “You took a cup of sorrow and cried a pitcher of tears” concerning the death of Kim Il-Sung. Another character talks of a magical garden where cries of pain and suffering are distorted into laughter. School children watch the trial and execution of a man tied to a peach tree. The rope that was used to tie the man had more of an impact than the execution. The rope bound a person into helplessness. Perhaps there are things worse than death.

One cannot but feel the entrapment and hopelessness of many of the people. Some follow not to get noticed. Some follow out of fear. Some dare hope to escape. The majority know they are stuck and try to ignore their surroundings and live in an illusion of a positive attitude. The stories are fiction, but the feelings and emotions in them seem very real. One wonders if the stories are fiction in only that names and places have been changed. Haunting fiction because the reader knows it can very well be true.

I consider this an important book. The reader gets a taste of what life is like for the population of North Korea... and it's not great. Here the party rules everything, everyone is suspicious of each other, deportation of citizens from the city to the harsh countryside can happen within the hour, and lies are constantly recycled to prop up the infallibility and wisdom of the great leader. The author gives the impression that much of the general population is aware of the facade but fear for their lives and the lives of their relatives should they speak up. These things alone make the book worth reading and remind us to keep an eye on the activities of our own governments.

Bailed at page 89. Not that it's bad, but I just couldn't seem to get into it. Moving on to other things.

This is an amazing book - one the author has risked his life to have told. You need to read it.

From the Afterword:
The South Korean publication of this piece of fiction, which sharply criticizes and satirizes the North Korean regime, and which is written by a man who still lives and works under that same system, is a historical first—nothing like it has emerged in the sixty-eight years since the peninsula was divided, Though memoirs and pieces of fiction by North Korean defectors, of a similarly critical tone, have indeed been published now and then, these have all been written after the authors’ escape to the free world. No work denouncing the oppressive, anti-democratic regime of North Korea, by a writer still living in North Korea, has ever been published before.

Written between 1989 and 1995

This book of short stories is a compilation of work that was smuggled out of North Korea. It is the only one of it's kind, as other novels of life in NK were written by people after they had escaped. The writing is very good, tight and atmospheric. The overwhelming sense is one of fear and mistrust. Similar to life under Stalin/Mao, the regime requires strict adherence to the often glaringly false party declarations put forth by the regime. No variance to doubt is permitted and there is always someone waiting to rat you out to the authorities. One can never confess their true feelings for the regime for fear of being severely punished. People are banished for minor infractions, lives are ruined, families destroyed. Shame on one offender will follow the family line for generations. The worse off are those who fought for North Korea, who were promised a land of "milk and honey" and are feeling betrayed. They know things are not as they should be, not how they could be, and yet they have no recourse.
It is a sad, depressing reality, even the privileged know it can all be gone in a second. While we see only the "Great Leader" and can assume things are horrible for the people of NK, the reality of their lives is much much worse. Still, there is beautiful writing, sympathetic characters and much to learn.

Compelled loyalty is no loyalty at all, and the characters in these seven stories, often crushed by random events or the weather as well as a horrifying system of harming the children and other relatives of those called disloyal to the regime, not only have no loyalty to the Great Leader but do everything they can to survive the hell that is North Korean life with their wits intact. The anonymous writer, named Bandi for "firefly" and possibly discovered and tortured or killed at this time, produced a work of revelation. Life in an autocratic, totalitarian regime is absurd, and Bandi writes about it will deep skill and strength. This book, which may have killed its author, is one that should stand with other literature of realistic absurdity. Beautifully written and carefully translated.

There's a story in The Accusation about faking emotion: crying when we're happy, laughing when we're sad. Under such a system as North Korea, all emotions are either muted or exaggerated. In the same vein, and for the same reasons, the writing style of The Accusation
also veers between muted or exaggerated melodrama, but what else can one expect from a society that represses or fakes emotion? I didn't come into these stories expecting literature as much as a window into North Korean life. The Accusation is important not because of its literary merits, but because it exists as an act of rebellion against the horror of the North Korean regime. It's crazy that North Korea exists, and The Accusation exists to show us that.

The Accusation by Bandi went on sale March 7, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Es fa difícil valorar una obra que per ara és única ja que no hi ha una basta literatura de llibres crítics amb el règim de Corea del Nord que provinguin d'autors que encara viuen allà i que han escrit en primera persona el que s'hi viu. Però malgrat tot el llibre és molt interessant per qui estigui intrigat amb el tema i ofereix relats molt potents sobre la vida nord-coreana tot i que amb un estil de narrativa que pot sobtar si no s'hi està acostumat.

En el año 2013 un escritor norcoreano –que se oculta bajo el seudónimo de Bandi y del que poco se sabe– consiguió sacar fuera de su país un manuscrito que contenía unos cuentos que había escondido durante años. Poco después se publicaría en Seúl un libro con esos relatos, La acusación, un contundente retrato de la vida cotidiana en Corea del Norte.
En ellos, un héroe de guerra y ferviente comunista planta un olmo en el jardín de su hogar para conmemorar el triunfo de la revolución. Un niño en Pyongyang llora ante el retrato de Karl Marx, creyendo que es Obi, un monstruo de la mitología coreana. Una esposa intenta alimentar a su marido durante los años más duros de la hambruna de finales de los ochenta. Un hombre trata de viajar a su pueblo natal para despedirse de su madre moribunda. Y una mujer en una situación peligrosa se encuentra con el mismísimo Gran Líder.
Ambientados en la década de 1990, bajo los gobiernos de Kim Il-sung y Kim Jong-il, los siete relatos de La acusación arrojan un poco de luz sobre lo terrible y absurdo que es vivir bajo una de las dictaduras más herméticas de todos los tiempos.

Most so-called publishing sensations are IMO not worth reading, but The Accusation, Forbidden Stories from inside North Korea certainly is. My edition, published with financial assistance from the UK branch of PEN,gives a brief and circumspect explanation about how it is samizdat literature, smuggled out of North Korea. For safety’s sake, the author has chosen the pen name ‘Bandi’ meaning ‘firefly’, hoping to shine a light on the world’s most notoriously secretive regime. (A regime which might now be the trigger for nuclear war).

There are seven stories, all of them set during the rule of Kim Il-sung, grandfather of North Korea’s current leader Kim Jong-un, and each illuminating a different aspect of life in North Korea. For those of us who grew up reading samizdat from the former Soviet Union, or have read Yan Lianke’s satiric fictions about the Communist regime in China, there is a grim familiarity about it. ‘Record of a Defection’ (1989) depicts one of the worst forms of social control: punishing families and their descendants for petty infringements that happened decades ago. When the narrator finds a hidden packet of contraceptives he fears his wife’s infidelity, and in a sad parody of official surveillance he spies on her, only to discover that in fact she has been able to access his file and has realised the victimisation that lies in store for any child they might have. The story relies for effect on the distorted communication between the pair, the narrator’s false assumptions about his wife’s loyalty mirroring the false assumptions that the regime has about his loyalty to the state. It seems a simple story, but it’s revealing in its depiction of the implacability of a descendant’s position. It doesn’t matter what the offence was, or how trivial or false it might have been, there is no escape from its effects.

‘City of Specters’ (1993) (sic) reveals the ways in which a citizen can fall foul of the regime.

BTW Many people have awarded this book 5 stars. It's a five-star act of courage, but I've only given it 3, because no matter how worthy a book's intentions, I reserve 5 stars for the very best of world literature.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/05/01/the-accusation-by-bandi-translated-by-debora...

Stories of Endurance

Although the short stories in Bandi's "The Accusation" are presented as fiction, they probably give a sense of the real everyday life of average people in the recent past of North Korea. I'm thinking in comparison to say the more fantastical recent novel "The Orphan Master's Son" which takes a character through a wide-ranging journey from orphanages to spy-missions to prison camps and to the very top of the hierarchy.

The stories are dated from 1989 to 1995 and thus take place at the end of Kim Il-sung's and the beginning of his son Kim Jong-Il's dictatorships, i.e. they take place 1 to 2 generations before the current (early 2017) rule of grandson Kim Jong-Un in the Kim dynasty. This may make it seem as if the book was out of date, but it is unlikely that conditions have changed much in the Cult of Personality state. They have actually likely gotten worse as aid from the former Soviet Union dried up upon its dissolution in 1991.

Bandi's characters are drawn from a gamut of primarily regular people each of which is in a position to observe the effect of the regime on some aspect of their own, their families' or their friends' lives. It is all the more effective because of that.

Bandi's biography is somewhat described in the Afterword to the book, but it is likely disguised to prevent the regime's security services from tracking him down. A book of poetry is apparently also in preparation and two examples are provided in this current volume as "In Place of a Preface" and "In Place of Acknowledgements."

Links
For more on the background of the book, see "Stranger than Fiction: How a Forbidden Book was Smuggled Out of North Korea."

I cannot overstate the importance of The Accusation by Bandi. It is possible that this is the most noteworthy work to be published this year. This is a FIRST in literary history: the first piece of dissident literary fiction to come from a writer currently living inside North Korea. Written between 1989 and 1995 (during the last years of Kim Il-sung's life and the beginning of The Arduous March)--never meant to be seen by any eyes in the author's homeland besides his own--these six stories and a poem, highlight the everyday lives of the people--from all stations--who live under these oppressive regimes. While here in the West, we've heard these kinds of stories from defectors, we have no idea what the literary tradition in North Korea looks like outside of propaganda novels, memoirs, and poetry. We simply don't know how North Korean writers craft stories, establish themes, develop characters; we don't know what are popular genres. And it is possible we may never read another word from Bandi after this. And so Deborah Smith proves once again that she is a champion translator, talented and compassionate, able to interpret the author's intent while simultaneously weaving the narratives that are compelling to Western readers. With the ability to perform such a weighty task as this one--with what is possibly someone's life's work--I would not be surprised if she won another award this year. I think this is a Nobel Prize-worthy work.

Dubbed “the Solzhenitsyn of Pyongyang,” Bandi is the pseudonym of a dissident North Korean author, and these are the first published stories written by a person still living under that repressive regime.
The seven stories in this collection were written between 1989 and 1995, a particularly bleak period at the start of a severe five-year famine, when Great Leader Kim Jong-un’s grandfather and father ruled the country. Like the overlapping circles of a Venn diagram, the stories share commonalities both in the psychological challenges their protagonists face and in the external environment they must negotiate. These common themes create an indelible impression of Bandi’s world.
Paranoia is prominent. A person who deviates from expectations in any way or complains about anything, significant or trivial, risks being observed, reported, and denounced. The actor in the story “On Stage” titles Act One of his satirical—and dangerous—skit: “It Hurts, Hahaha,” and Act Two: “It Tickles, Boohoo!”—to underscore how people must act according to expectations and contrary to their true feelings. This stunt, predictably, ends in disgrace.
Denunciation can lead to banishment from the city to a life of extreme privation in the country, even death. But death does not end a family’s downfall. A father’s error curtails the educational and occupational prospects for his children and grandchildren, as described in the collection’s first story, “Record of a Defection,” in which a family risks everything to try to escape this collective fate.
Winters are bitter, food is never plentiful, and loudspeakers harangue the population. Their constantly blaring messages from the government are full of “alternative facts.”
The stories were translated by Deborah Smith, winner of the Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian. Bandi’s writing style is markedly different from that of Western fiction, with little description and with character development mainly through action and dialog. This bracing style fits material with so much implicit drama and heartache. (For a more immersive approach, you might read the richly plotted Pulitzer Prize-winning Adam Johnson novel, The Orphan Master’s Son, which also puts North Korea’s absurdities and ironies on full display.)
Do Bandi’s stories give the impression that the North Korean people recognize the peculiar nature of their system and its injustices? Absolutely. And if the people are called upon to fulfill some outrageous government edict, will they break their backs trying to do so? Absolutely.
The story of how the book came to be smuggled out of the country and ultimately found its way into print is an exciting tale in itself, included as an afterword. For that heroic effort alone, the book is worthy of attention. It also can’t hurt to foster greater understanding of the suffering that ensues when totalitarian leadership proceeds to its natural end-state. The North Korea Bandi describes is one Westerners may have difficulty comprehending, yet the fact that in 2017 it exists at all proves it is not impossible.

North Korea, a closed society, books and news have been filtering out in the last several years. In these seven stories, based on experiences and thoughts of the people as told to the author, we learn some of the harsh realities of living under this type of dictatorship, cut off from the rest of the world. They are as enlightening and harsh as one could imagine. The way the book made it out of North Korea, or that it even did, is amazing as is the way these stories are told. This information and more, some of the author's background is chronicled in the afterword.

All of these stories serve to highlight the huge disconnect between outward emotion, thoughts, actions and internal feelings. Of being constantly watched for loyalty and love to the great leader, any independent action suspect, even those with valid reasons. Family reputation everything, of not being looked on favorably if a family member had done something, no matter how small, considered against the regime, never being able to rise above this status, for any family member, not ever. Of praising the regime for its generosity while not having enough to eat, fuel to stay warm nor even to gain permission to stay home with a sick child, visit a dying mother. Banishment to the far outreaches, internment in a work camp and even death the penalties. Horrifically unbelievable, yet it happens again and again, happens still and not just in North Korea.

ARC from Netgalley.

Ce mois-ci, l’éditeur choisi par Sandrine pour son opération Un Mois Un Éditeur est Philippe Picquier, qui a fêté en 2016 ses 30 ans, tout de même ! Bien sûr, il n’y n’en avait pas qu’un dans ma PAL, mais j’ai choisi de lire ce recueil de nouvelles nord-coréennes publié l’année dernière et ardemment soutenu par mon libraire l’année dernière.

Il s’agit de sept nouvelles, datant des années 1990, écrites par un auteur habitant la Corée du Nord. Il est né en 1950, a été ouvrier (il l’est peut-être encore), s’est mis à écrire en même temps, en étant reconnu par les institutions de son pays et est aujourd’hui membre du Comité central de la Fédération des auteurs de Chosun. Bandi a fait passer quelques textes à l’étranger par des intermédiaires. Ils ont été publiés dans différents pays dont la Corée du Sud, et donc en France aussi en 2016. Dans l’introduction, on nous livre entre autres les informations suivantes sur les motivations de l’auteur :

Lors de la grande famine, qui débute en 1994, l’année du décès de Kim Il-sung, Bandi perd beaucoup de ses proches, un certain nombre d’entre eux meurent de faim, d’autres fuient le pays en quête d’une vie meilleur. Suite à ces déchirements, Bandi remet profondément en cause le fonctionnement de la société nord-coréenne et décide, par le biais de ses écrits, de faire savoir au monde entier ce qu’il en pense.

Bandi se définit lui-même comme le porte-parole des habitants de Corée du Nord contraints de subir tout à la fois les conséquences désastreuses de l’économie socialiste propre à ce pays, un régime de castes et un système de punitions collectives – le mal le plus cruel qui soit dans toute l’histoire de l’humanité. L’écrivain récolte les histoires douloureuses que les habitants vivent au quotidien mais dont ils ne peuvent se plaindre auprès de personne, et redonne vie à chacune de ces anecdotes au travers de sa création littéraire ; les rumeurs, les faits réels, tout ce qu’il voit et entend l’inspire.
Le livre est donc composé comme je le disais de sept nouvelles. Elles ont toute la même base. Elles mettent en scène des personnages simples, qui ne sont ni des hauts fonctionnaires du régime ni des contestataires de celui-ci. Certains (dans deux nouvelles) adhèrent aux idéaux défendus par le régime (bonheur pour tous…) et travaillent dur pour que cela se produise pour eux ou leurs enfants. D’autres se contentent de vivre dans leur pays, de participer aux événements organisés par le Parti : la plupart subissent en silence les décisions qu’on leur impose. Jusqu’au jour où il y a une injustice qui les touche, pas forcément eux-mêmes mais leurs proches.

Plusieurs femmes refusent de faire des enfants, quand elles voient qu’ils seront toutes leurs vies marqués au fer rouge par les actions de leurs parents. Un homme est empêché d’aller voir sa mère mourante car la région est bouclée par un événement numéro 1 (événement impliquant une sécurité maximale car impliquant un des Kim). Lors d’un autre événement du même type, une grand-mère se voit proposer de monter dans la voiture du dirigeant du pays car elle marchait seule sur la route après avoir laissé son mari et sa petite-fille à la gare complètement bloquée et pleine de monde. Elle se fait même interviewer par les journalistes d’état. Pendant ce temps, le trafic ferroviaire se débloque, il y a un mouvement de foule dans la gare, sa petite-fille et son mari seront très gravement blessés. Pourtant, les médias n’en parleront pas mais diffuseront en boucle son interview. Elle comprend alors que tout n’est que sourire de façade. Dans le même style, un jeune homme explique à son père que toute leur vie n’est que théâtre, chacun étant acteur depuis sa naissance. Même si on meurt de faim, on doit affirmer avec conviction le contraire même si on nous le demande …

J’ai choisi de ne pas faire un petit résumé de chaque nouvelle car je trouve que c’est finalement l’atmosphère générale qui finalement compte. On fait connaissance de personnages simples, vivant aussi bien dans la capitale qu’à la campagne. On lit des déportations, des dénonciations, des décisions choquantes mais aussi des moments de la vie de tous les jours… Ces textes permettent à mon avis de rentrer réellement dans les foyers nord-coréens, de se faire une idée de la vie de cette population (en tout cas dans les années 1990). La postface du livre met des mots sur ce sentiment, en disant que finalement ces nouvelles nous montrent qu’il existe toujours une part d’humanité dans ce pays où le régime souhaite complètement anesthésier son peuple. Les gens se rendent compte de ce qu’il se passe, ils ne sont pas dupes. L’auteur de la postface souligne aussi qu’il est fort dommage que ces nouvelles, quand elles ont été publiées en Corée du Sud, ont été fort peu lues par la population car celle-ci voit les Nord-coréens plutôt comme des frères ennemis que comme une population constituée d’humains.

Vous aurez compris que je vous conseille fortement cette lecture, pour dépasser un peu tout ce que l’on peut entendre ou lire sur ce pays. J’ai lu un commentaire je crois sur Amazon qui indiquait que littérairement c’était plutôt moyen. Pas du tout ! Les textes sont très construits, il y a de très belles images … J’ai déjà lu des nouvelles qui tenaient moins la route que cela. Chose non négligeable pour une Occidentale : j’ai réussi à retenir les prénoms et à ne pas m’embrouiller sur qui était qui. Rien que cela à mon avis souligne que ces textes sont de vraies œuvres de littérature.