Published July 2026 via Bloomsbury Academic
★★★
Years ago, Chung got involved with an organization dedicated to supporting North Korean refugees and defectors who have made their way to China and, sometimes, beyond. A Hard Freedom tells some of his stories, and some of the stories of the people he's met along the way.
I read Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy more than a decade ago, and it's stuck with me enough that I take a second look whenever I see a book about North Korea. To be fair, I am curious about most places I've never been (exceptions include Delaware and Tampa), but North Korea is of course unique for its closed-off nature and secretiveness.
A Hard Freedom wasn't really what I expected. Based on the description, I thought this would be largely about defectors' journeys through China (where detection by authorities can mean deportation back to North Korea, and consequently imprisonment in a labor camp) and into third countries (including South Korea). Maybe some anecdotes, but a few people's stories told in full throughout the book. I didn't expect so much of this to be about religion—it turns out that Crossing Borders, the organization Chung is involved in, is a Christian organization, and a lot of what they do centers on religion. Chung says early on that the point of the book is not to proselytize, but that religion is part of his story (and I suppose the organization's), and so he's included it. I do think he tried to limit how much he talked about religion, but it feels like perhaps religion is so ingrained in his life that even limiting how much it comes up in the book makes for...well, quite a lot more than I expected, when I thought I was just going to be reading a book about North Korea.
The book itself was a bit of a mixed bag for me. There's some interesting research and some devastating stories. Crossing Borders works mostly with women, many of whom were sold as wives or slaves when they crossed into China, and many of whom have suffered the sorts of hardships that should be unimaginable. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about the demographics of people who try to get out of North Korea, but Chung notes that, for various reasons, it's often women of low social status. And again for various reasons, they're incredibly vulnerable in China, and even if they make it to South Korea, it can take a long time and a lot of work and support to reach any kind of emotional and physical stability.
The structure of the book felt disjointed, though, with a fair amount of repetition. Chung talks about a number of women he and Crossing Borders worked with, and returns to some of their stories throughout the book, but I found myself wishing he'd worked with a journalist who was used to teasing out stories and digging deep for details. There are also some odd things, like an out-of-left-field quotation from Elon Musk talking about how much better it is to be a prisoner of war in the US than in North Korea, and like...while I don't doubt that, there's also, like...Guantanamo...and everything the US is currently doing to immigrants...and if someone is going to be quoted on the subject, I'd prefer it to be an expert than it to be an egotistical billionaire.
With all this said: I'd likely still have read the book if I'd known that it was about the experiences of a specific, religious organization, but I'd have adjusted my expectations accordingly. And I'm curious now about the book Chung's former colleague wrote—but I'll go into that one with my expectations a bit clearer, and then I'll go read something a bit more academic on the subject.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
