The Accusation

The old man of Europe with his bristling beard

Claimed that capitalism is a pitch-black realm

While communism is a world of light

I, Bandi, of this so-called world of light,

Fated to shine only in a world of darkness,

Denounce in front of the whole world

That light which is truly fathomless darkness,

Black as a moonless night at the year's end.

The Accusation, a collection of seven short stories (written between 1989 and 1995), is the first work of Western-published fiction to be written by a citizen still living in North Korea, having been smuggled out with the hope of shining a light on the Hermit Kingdom. I've read two accounts of those who have escaped (Escape from Camp 14 and In Order to Live), and one fictionalised novel of life in North Korea written by an American (The Orphan Master's Son), and more than anything, I was curious to know what fiction would look like coming from someone who, presumably, hasn't been exposed to all the great literature of the world. What I hadn't expected was that the author Bandi (a pseudonym that means “firefly”) is apparently a well-known journalist and member of the Choson Writers' Alliance, so while these aren't the work of an amateur – there is frequent use of literary devices such as flashbacks and foreshadowing and irony – there is something a little primitive and naive about the writing (like excellent high school compositions); and I hope that means that the editors and translator are allowing us to hear Bandi's own voice. Each of the seven stories is based on an actual anecdote that Bandi heard of, and could never report on, through his job as a journalist, and although there's nothing sensationalised here about the abuse suffered in North Korea, there is a constant wearing down; the knowledge that every move someone makes is being watched and evaluated. Bandi went to great personal risk to write and share these stories, and reading them feels urgent and necessary. The stories:

Record of a Defection
As hinted at by the title, this story is written as a confessional letter left for a friend as a desperate man plans his escape. Right from the start we are made to understand that the actions of anyone in a person's family will reflect upon the entire family for generations to come (because the narrator's father had allowed a crate of seedlings to die when he was first assigned to a greenhouse during collectivisation, the narrator was thought of as a “black crow” himself, and even his young nephew was being targeted for abuse). Told in letter form, this story includes excerpts from his wife's diary (but if you were writing a letter, would you include someone else's verbatim diary entries? This is the kind of device that felt a bit amateur by our standards.)

We feel that to slide into oblivion would genuinely be better than continuing to live as we have been, persecuted and tormented. If fate intervenes, perhaps the hand of a rescuer might draw us to some new shore. Otherwise, we can only hope that our canoe on the vast blue will mark this land as a barren desert, a place where life withers and dies!

City of Specters
When a young mother was having trouble keeping her sick two-year-old from fussing in public, she was inspired by a line from The Communist Manifesto (“A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of Communism”), and pointing at the huge portrait of Marx hanging in Kim Il-sung Square in advance of the National Day celebrations, warns that he – the Eobi – would get the little boy if he didn't behave. Because Gyeong-hee was from an upstanding rural family that had never been accused of wrongdoing, she didn't understand that life in the capital was one of constant observation. 

Fear swelled inside her – fear, something which had to be instilled in you from birth if you were to survive in this country. Now, at last, she had the answer to the riddle, understood the force that had moved a hundred thousand people like puppets on a string. If her husband were to quiz her now on Marx's most significant theory, how much more seriously, rigorously, confidently could she have answered.

Life of a Swift Steed
On the heels of liberation from Japanese occupation, two brothers planted elm trees after joining the Communist Party, assured that by the time they grew as tall as the chimney tops, everyone would be eating rice and meat every day, wearing silks, and boasting tiled roofs on their homes. Fifty years later, there's no food or fuel for the fireplaces. There's a nice bit of irony that the now huge tree – a potential source of firewood – is revered as a symbol of the promise of Socialism, just as an old man's disillusionment begins to set in. 

As soon as dusk had fallen, the cold had shown a renewed vigor, and the pallid sliver of moon had retreated behind the patchy forest on the ridge of the northeast mountains, as though startled by the cracking of the river ice.

So Near, Yet So Far
Desperate to see his mother before she dies, a son rages against a system that restricts travel even within its own borders. Told in a series of flashbacks, there's an unsubtle parallel story about caged larks.

Myeong-chol longed to let himself sob out loud, to stamp the ground or shake a fist at the sky. But, depending on the circumstances, he knew that even crying could be construed as an act of rebellion, for which, in this country, there was only one outcome – a swift and ruthless death. And so it was the law of the land to smile even when you were racked with pain, to swallow down whatever burned your throat.

Pandemonium
There is a disconnect between the official “happy sound of laughter” that the Dear Leader's new road and railway through the countryside evokes and the painful chaos that it actually creates on the ground. Rotates between present tense and flashback scenes and has some nicely satirical bits featuring Kim Il-sung himself.

Once upon a time there was a garden, surrounded on all sides by a great, high fence. In that garden, an old demon ruled over thousands upon thousands of slaves. But the surprising thing was that the only sound ever to be heard within those high walls was the sound of merry laughter. Hahaha and hohoho, all year round – because of the laughing magic which the old demon used on his slaves.

On Stage
After the death of Kim Il-sung, the erection of altars to facilitate public mourning morphs into a duty to mourn under the evaluative eye of government spies. The flashback in this story is told in the form of an official document and the analogy made between stagecraft and survival under the regime is nicely balanced.

Isn't it frightening, this society which teaches us all to be great actors, able to turn on the waterworks at the drop of a hat?...But those who see forced tears as a sign of loyalty, of solidarity? Aren't they the real idiots? Surely you know that whatever the play, the curtain always falls in the end?

The Red Mushroom
When one man's efforts have a good outcome at a rural bean-paste factory, the local Party officials – in the pretty red-brick Party HQ building – take the credit for themselves. But when weather and mismanagement reverse the factory's fortunes, that individual becomes the fall guy. A journalist who witnesses the entire story must write articles that follow the Party line, but he mentally compares the red-brick building to the poisonous mushrooms that make a literal appearance in the plot.

In all of creation, the rule is that the more toxic something is, the more pretty and friendly it's made to look.

Bandi's hope that getting the truth out might lead, somehow, to regime change seems, ultimately, naive: nothing in these stories really surprised me; I think we all understand that life is just this hard in North Korea. The least we can do, therefore, is to bear witness to the truth, and while these might not be perfectly crafted stories, they are an incredible artefact and I can't give them less than five stars.

Though they be dry as a desert

And rough as a grassland

Shabby as an invalid

And primitive as stone tools

Reader!

I beg you to read my words.