The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Book Review

Lee Hyeon Seo, best known as ‘The Girl with Seven Names’, is a North Korean defector and activist who currently lives in Seoul of South Korea; she escaped from North Korea in 1997 and later guided her family out too through China and Laos to live together in South Korea. After multiple hardships throughout her journey from North to South Korea, the story of Lee Hyeon Seo’s escape became known globally through her New York Times Bestseller book ‘The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story’.

The book begins with her life in North Korea and how she thought the “country was the best on the planet”; she sang a song called ‘Nothing to Envy’ and “felt very proud”, thinking that “life in North Korea was normal” even though when Lee Hyeon Seo was seven years old, she saw her first public execution. Reading about life in North Korea was very stimulating as it pushes readers to imagine life as shown through the lens of Lee Hyeon Seo, and when we start to reach a point when Hyeon Seo is realising that North Korea is not as great as she thought, many emotions start to spark up, such as anxiety for the people suffering and what will happen to Hyeon Seo now.

The escape story caused as much fear for the fugitives as for the people who stayed in the country who remained in distress; however, the part that caused anger was the lack of help Hyeon Seo received during the 10 years of living in China and not being able to escape to South Korea until 2008, which is where Hyeon Seo was hoping life would improve.

The book enters a new chapter when Hyeon Seo begins her life in South Korea as an Asylum Seeker. Hyeon Seo explains how her first few years as an Asylum Seeker were filled with experiences of anti North Korean prejudice. Hyeon Seo found trying to live a better life difficult while dealing with a lot of discrimination, especially after having already endured 11 years of torment in China.

Currently, Lee Hyeon Seo  is learning English and working part-time as a student journalist at South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, while also continuing to study languages at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. She spoke of her experiences at a TED conference in Long Beach of California in 2013, of which the YouTube video reached over 16 million views.

If you are prepared for an emotionally tense ride through Lee Hyeon Seo’s life, ‘The Girl with Seven Names’ will definitely not disappoint; read it and create your own informed decision of life in North Korea, and the experiences of escaping.

The book is available on Amazon, linked HERE, and check out the TED conference talk linked down below.