“Dissident tales from pseudonymous author Bandi, still living in the country . . . very rare fiction to emerge from the secretive dictatorship . . . on its way to becoming an international literary sensation.”—Alison Flood, Guardian
“Plunges us into the daily life of families in North Korea. These stories are the cry of a man suffocated by totalitarianism. These are also the cry of an entire people who have been broken under the yoke of North Korean communism . . . The author makes use of storytelling, poetry, humor, and even the burlesque to aid his condemnation of these unbearable injustices. The writing is simple, humble, which gives it its beauty. The seven novellas shine with humanity and tenderness.”—Aleteia
“This collection of novellas that the author managed to extract from his country is of incredible value . . . The classic construction reminds us of Gogol and Chekhov, and for their taste for absurdist satire, Ionesco and Bulgakov.”—Books Magazine
“Describes in very impressionistic, subtle, almost veiled tones, if I may, the daily life of a dictatorship . . . The book gives a human face, gives stories and images, to the sufferings of North Koreans . . . I was almost groggy by the time I finished reading, reminding myself of just how lucky I am to live in a democracy . . . I thought of Orwell and Kafka but realized that the country described here really exists and that there are people who are living there, perhaps not even knowing that a different kind of life is possible.”—L’express
“Bandi, a pseudonym that means “firefly”, has achieved the unthinkable – offering a testimony on the dictatorial regime of North Korea while remaining in situ . . . In the same way as the works of Solzhenitsyn in their time, Bandi’s writing reminds us of the perennial necessity of battling censorship, whatever the cost.”—L’amour des livres
“This author is completely unknown and would like to stay that way. He continues to live in a country that is held fast by an iron fist, putting his life at risk by writing. He describes, not without humor, the ordinary life of this dictatorship, the extreme misery there, and the surveillance networks that have been put in place by the regime, which make everyone into a potential spy or informant.”—Mag Dimanche
“Even if one did not know anything about the writer or the way the manuscript was smuggled out of the country, it would not diminish the fact that the force of this collection of novellas evokes the classics of world literature about totalitarianism.”—L’ours
“A message in a bottle that is so precious that we should all reach out to grab it and better understand the tragedy of the last Marxist regime in the world.”—Le Revenu
“Stories of simple people that are humiliated and beaten down for absurd reasons, watched over by grotesque henchmen and toadying neighbors, arrested and punished by a dictatorship that has held the country under its heel for six decades. A book to burst the silence.”—La Vie
“This rare collection offers seven moving novellas, snapshots of a country where nothing normal ever leaks out . . . A far cry from the grandiloquent, ridiculous images that are thrown out by the Kim Jong-Un regime, The Accusation offers the opportunity to discover a moving portrait of a secret country, a forgotten land where humanity only asks to try to triumph.”—Lire
“No one could imagine that it could be at all comical to live in a dictatorship, but in describing the limitless absurdity of the system, Bandi sometimes makes the reader give out a nervous laugh . . . A fragile hint of light in a country that confuses democracy with obscurantism.”—L’Alsace
“Each of these stories shows a different aspect of the remorseless dictatorship . . . With a fierce sense of irony and a deeply dark humor, Bandi denounces totalitarianism, the divisions in North Korean society, and the absurdity and corruption of the one party system.”—La Grande Parade
“Stories written with a great humanity, the work of a true writer.”—Lecturama.fr
“The appearance of this collection of seven novellas is a true publishing event.”—Livres Hebdo
2016-12-26
Fugitive fiction—literally—from inside North Korea, devastatingly critical of the Kim dynasty and its workers' paradise.What do you do when your baby cries at a solemn gathering? You excuse yourself and leave the room—unless you're standing before a huge portrait of your beloved leader alongside beloved runner-up Karl Marx, in which case you pray that the baby in question does not bring down suspicion on your head as an enemy of the state, a saboteur, and that the tears do not unleash mythological monsters, to say nothing of "hundreds of figures hovering at [the] windows, peering out like rabbits from their burrows, eyes narrowed in accusation." A squalling infant might be one thing, a drawn curtain another, a bird cage another still: in claustrophobic North Korea, everything has significance, and though ordinary communication comes barking down from loudspeakers, it's the silences and pauses that carry more than their share of the weight. In these seven stories, Bandi—the name means "firefly" in Korean—describes, with numbing gravity, how awful life inside a totalitarian state really is. "What do you think, Comrade Hong," says one bureaucrat, thinking his way through a worker's crime of holding hands with a "factory girl." "Can this be classed a general incident, or is it a political matter?" There is a streak of satire in these stories, but mostly they are grimly realistic. Bandi is rumored to be a writer within the government, and certainly the author has access to the broad sweep of North Korean society, from industrial workers and farmers to midlevel political functionaries; all are equally oppressed by an all-encompassing system that crushes ordinary emotion and replaces it with piety. Laments one young cadre, "Oh, when would Min-hyuk's uncle be allowed to join the Party and see his true worth discovered?" Of more journalistic and sociological than literary interest, without the inventiveness of recent writing south of the 38th parallel—but still an important document of witness.
