Around the World ~ North Korea, Spain, Russia

A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea ~ by Masaji Ishikawa, 2000, memoir (North Korea)

The harrowing true story of one man’s life in — and subsequent escape from — North Korea, one of the world’s most brutal totalitarian regimes.  Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country.  This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste.  His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society.  But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.  In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life.  This book is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity — and indomitable nature — of the human spirit.

The Light of the Fireflies ~ by Paul Pen, 2013, fiction (Spain)

For his whole life, the boy has lived underground, in a basement with his parents, grandmother, sister, and brother.  Before he was born, his family was disfigured by a fire.  His sister wears a white mask to cover her burns.  He spends his hours with his cactus, reading his book on insects, or touching the one ray of sunlight that filters in through a crack in the ceiling.  Ever since his sister had a baby, everyone’s been acting very strangely.  The boy begins to wonder why they never say who the father is, about what happened before his own birth, about why they’re shut away.  A few days ago, some fireflies arrived in the basement.  His grandma said, "There’s no creature more amazing than one that can make its own light."  That light makes the boy want to escape, to know the outside world.  The problem is, all the doors are locked.  And he doesn’t know how to get out.

The Gray House ~ by Mariam Petrosyan, 2009, fiction (Russia)

This is an astounding tale of how what others understand as liabilities can be leveraged into strengths. Bound to wheelchairs and dependent on prosthetic limbs, the physically disabled students living in the House are overlooked by the Outsides. Not that it matters to anyone living in the House, a hulking old structure that its residents know is alive. From the corridors and crawl spaces to the classrooms and dorms, the House is full of tribes, tinctures, scared teachers, and laws—all seen and understood through a prismatic array of teenagers’ eyes. But student deaths and mounting pressure from the Outsides put the time-defying order of the House in danger. As the tribe leaders struggle to maintain power, they defer to the awesome power of the House, attempting to make it through days and nights that pass in ways that clocks and watches cannot record.

These three books are among nine offered free for Kindle for another four or five days.