Hyeonseo Lee

The Girl with Seven Names


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       19. A Visit to Mr Ahn

       20. Home truths

       21. The suitor

       22. The wedding trap

       23. Shenyang girl

       24. Guilt call

       25. The men from the South

       26. Interrogation

       27. The plan

       28. The gang

       29. The comfort of moonlight

       30. The biggest, brashest city in Asia

       31. Career woman

       32. A connection to Hyesan

       33. The teddy-bear conversations

       34. The tormenting of Min-ho

       35. The love shock

       36. Destination Seoul

       Part Three: Journey into Darkness

       37. ‘Welcome to Korea’

       38. The women

       39. House of Unity

       40. The learning race

       41. Waiting for

       42. A place of ghosts and wild dogs

       43. An impossible dilemma

       44. Journey into night

       45. Under a vast Asian sky

       46. Lost in Laos

       47. Whatever it takes

       48. The kindness of strangers

       49. Shuttle diplomacy

       50. Long wait for freedom

       51. A series of small miracles

       52. ‘I am prepared to die’

       53. The beauty of a free mind

       EPILOGUE

       LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

       PICTURE SECTION

       INDEX

       ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       ABOUT THE AUTHORS

       ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Map Missing Map Missing

       Author’s Note

      To protect relatives and friends still in North Korea, I have changed some names in this book and withheld other details. Otherwise, all the events described happened as I remembered or was told about them.

       Introduction

       13 February 2013

      Long Beach, California

      My name is Hyeonseo Lee.

      It is not the name I was born with, nor one of the names forced on me, at different times, by circumstance. But it is the one I gave myself, once I’d reached freedom. Hyeon means sunshine. Seo means good fortune. I chose it so that I would live my life in light and warmth, and not return to the shadow.

      I am standing in the wings of a large stage, listening to the hundreds of people in the auditorium. A woman has just blushed my face with a soft brush and a microphone is being attached to me. I worry that it will pick up the sound of my heart, which is thumping in my ears. Someone asks me if I’m ready.

      ‘I’m ready,’ I say, though I do not feel it.

      The next thing I know I’m hearing an amplified announcement. A voice is saying my name. I am being introduced.

      A noise like the sea rises in the auditorium. Many hands are clapping. My nerves begin to flutter wildly.

      I’m stepping onto the stage.

      I feel terrified suddenly. My legs have turned to paper. The spotlights are faraway suns, dazzling me. I can’t make out any faces in the audience.

      Somehow