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LONDON — A book that gives a rare glimpse of everyday life inside one of the world’s most secretive nations won Britain’s leading nonfiction book prize Thursday.
Barbara Demick’s “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea” was named winner of the $30,000 Samuel Johnson award at a ceremony in London.
Demick, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, interviewed North Korean defectors and drew on smuggled photos and videos to tell the story of six residents of the totalitarian state, including a pair of clandestine lovers and a patriotic factory worker with a rebellious daughter. She said the book arose from a desire to find the truth behind Pyongyang’s forbidding facade.
The Associated Press
