A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea

With the start of autumn, starving people descended upon the banks of the Tumen River in droves. Those who had relatives in China crossed over in search of food and money; survivors who’d lost loved ones surged across the border along with workers from factories that had shut down, vowing to bring back money and save their families. No one dared to

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Over the course of the twentieth century, Haitians, escaping poverty and unrest, sought refuge in the Bahamas as well. It was and remains a deeply stratified place, sitting at a crossroads, with the global elites and their tax havens at the top and poor Haitians living in shanties at the bottom. It is one of the tragic ironies of global history tha

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The peasants thanked Chairman Mao for punishing him. No one questioned his guilt, or the degree of his responsibility. I sought him out, on my own, and asked him his story. He seemed pathetically grateful to be asked. “I was carrying out orders,” he kept saying. “I had to carry out orders….” Then he sighed: “Of course, I didn’t want to lose my post

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You could see it in the children. Their intelligence was frightening. And they had a freedom which we envied. There were so few restraints upon them. So few expectations. Then at the age of eleven or twelve they would cease being children. They lost their childhood overnight and they had no youth. They became very serious. As if some terrible truth

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