10117cam a2200601 4500 253934252 TxAuBib 20160223120000.0 ||||||s2014||||||||||||||||||||||||und|u 9781101912768 1101912766 d6a79331-808d-4212-bfe0-367213504108 OverDrive (Reserve ID) 1815141 OverDrive (Product ID) TxAuBib Kim, Suki. Without You, There Is No Us [Libby Audiobook] : My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2014. Format: OverDrive OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, Filesize: 236MB. Format: OverDrive OverDrive Listen, Filesize: 236MB. HTML:A haunting memoir of teaching English to the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il's reign Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields—except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound where portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il look on impassively from the walls of every room, and where Suki has accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them to write, all under the watchful eye of the regime. Life at PUST is lonely and claustrophobic, especially for Suki, whose letters are read by censors and who must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but from her colleagues—evangelical Christian missionaries who don't know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn't share their faith. As the weeks pass, she is mystified by how easily her students lie, unnerved by their obedience to the regime. At the same time, they offer Suki tantalizing glimpses of their private selves—their boyish enthusiasm, their eagerness to please, the flashes of curiosity that have not yet been extinguished. She in turn begins to hint at the existence of a world beyond their own—at such exotic activities as surfing the Internet or traveling freely and, more dangerously, at electoral democracy and other ideas forbidden in a country where defectors risk torture and execution. But when Kim Jong-il dies, and the boys she has come to love appear devastated, she wonders whether the gulf between her world and theirs can ever be bridged. Without You, There Is No Us offers a moving and incalculably rare glimpse of life in the world's most unknowable country, and at the privileged young men she calls "soldiers and slaves." From the Hardcover edition.. By securing a position as an English teacher and hiding her intention to write a book, writer Suki Kim was able to gain access to the enigmatic and largely inaccessible country of North Korea while teaching at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). Janet Song's measured voicing is precise and serious, befitting the spare, unadorned surroundings in which the author finds herself. Song's lightly Asian-accented tones help portray the author's own South Korean heritage and knowledge of the Korean language, both of which give her additional access to North Koreans. Song does especially well at capturing the stiff recitations and largely unquestioning nature of the North Korean students Kim taught. This is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at one of the world's most secretive nations. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine. AudioFile Magazine. HTML:"Suki Kim's compelling reports for Harper's, The New York Review of Books, and others have expanded and deepened our understanding both of life in the North, and the West's profound misapprehensions about it....[This book is] a fascinating, if deeply fraught document about the education of the North Korean elite, an aspect of the country that until very recently has been almost completely occluded... Kim's access to the boys constitutes the unique nature of her book [and] illuminates just how sheltered they are.". Los Angeles Review of Books. "This superb work of investigative journalism is distinguished by its grave beauty and aching tenderness. So skilled is Suki Kim in conveying the eeriness and surreal disconnect of the North Korean landscape that I sometimes felt I was reading a ghost story, one that will haunt me with its silences, with its image of snow falling upon a desolate campus, with the far laughter of her beloved students.". HTML:Kiran Desai, author of The Inheritance of Loss. "Remarkable...A deeply unsettling book, offering a rare and disturbing inside glimpse into the strangeness, brutality and claustrophobia of North Korea... Kim's book is full of small observations that vividly evoke the paranoia and loneliness of a nation living in fear and in thrall to its 'Great Leaders'...Her portraits of her students are tender and heartbreaking, highlighting the enormity of what is at stake.". Chicago Tribune. HTML:"Terrifying and sublime, Without You, There Is No Us is a stealth account of heartbreak. Suki Kim, brilliant author of The Interpreter, penetrates the soul of her divided country of origin, bearing witness to generations of maimed lives and arrested identities. This look inside totalitarian North Korea is like no other.". HTML:Jayne Anne Phillips, author of Lark and Termite and Quiet Dell. "A book about censorship, trust, fear, love, and truth, seen through the prism of a school that functions as a comfortable prison...The title comes from a song the students sing in honor of 'The Dear Leader,' including the lyric, 'Without you, there is no us.' Within that title, and this book, is a multitude of truths.". Philadephia Inquirer. HTML: "Like an explorer returned from a distant planet or another dimension, Suki Kim has many extraordinary tales to tell, among them how different--and how awful--life is for those who li. HTML:Carlos Eire, author of Waiting for Snow in Havana. "Daring...Kim finds that paranoia is contagious -- and can become chillingly routine. 'My little soldiers were also little robots,' she writes before departing, mourning not only that she must leave, but that they must stay.". Boston Globe. "A touching portrayal of the student experience in North Korea, which provides readers with a rare glimpse of life in this enigmatic country...Well-written and thoroughly captivating.". HTML:Library Journal, starred review. "Readers intrigued by Kim Jong Un's recent extended absence from public view can gain insight into the repressive system that shapes North Korea's ruling class from Suki Kim's new memoir.". HTML:Pittsburgh Tribune-Review . "A devastatingly vulnerable account... Kim's stark and delicate language, intertwined with the suspense of being an undercover journalist in a foreign-yet-familiar land, truly humanized North Korea for me.". Slate. "Strangely terrifying...A beautifully written book that greatly expands the limited bounds of what we know about North Korea's ruling class.". HTML:Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy. "[An] extraordinary and troubling portrait of life under severe repression...[Kim's] account is both perplexing and deeply stirring.". Publishers Weekly, starred review. "Sometimes personal histories retain a potent electromagnetic force, [like] Suki Kim's rivetingly topical look inside the most isolationist country on earth.". Vogue. "A starkly revealing look at this hermit nation...Kim opens herself as well as the DPRK to scrutiny...Moving and emotionally evocative.". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "A rare and nuanced look at North Korean culture, and an uncommon addition to the 'inspirational-teacher' genre.". HTML:Booklist, starred review. "Enthralling...Reveals the perplexing innocence and ignorance of one of the world's most secretive countries.". O: The Oprah Magazine. "Offers great details about [the students'] blinkered worldview...A frank depiction of North Korean life.". Foreign Policy. "Chilling...reminds us that evil is not only banal; it is also completely arbitrary.". New York Times Book Review. Biography & Autobiography. Nonfiction. History. Travel. Media Type: Audiobook. 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