Nothing to Envy
by Barbara Demick
🏆 Winner of the 2010 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Winner of Winners Prize, which aims to pick out the best nonfiction book of the past 25 years
Recommendations from our site
“This is probably my favourite work of narrative nonfiction ever. It’s such an amazing book. She’s written about life in North Korea, which is one of the most difficult to access, closed regimes in the world, and she’s done it through very, very detailed interviews with North Korean defectors, mainly in South Korea, where she was based at the time, working as a foreign correspondent. It’s so compelling. It reads like a novel, a real page turner.” Read more...
The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books
Samira Shackle, Journalist
“She includes great details that show everyday life in North Korea.” Read more...
Hyeonseo Lee, Memoirist
Our most recommended books
-
The Argumentative Indian
by Amartya Sen -
India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy
by Ramachandra Guha -
Ali and Nino
by Kurban Said -
Freedom from Fear
by Aung San Suu Kyi -
Monkey King: Journey to the West
Wu Cheng'en and Julia Lovell (translator) -
The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movement in Iraq
by Hanna Batatu