The Aquariums of Pyongyang - Kang Chol-Hwan

Kang Chol-Hwan is the first person to escape successfully from the gulags of North Korea and tell the story of his imprisonment. In collaboration with Pierre Rigoulot, Kang exposes the appälling truth about life in the camp: the forced labour, the public executions and the near-starvation rations that drove him to eat bugs and rats. After ten years, Kang was eventually able to escape via China to South Korea.

Part horror story and part historical document, The Aquariums of Pyongyang testifies to the hardships and atrocities that continue in the world’s last Stalinist state. It lays bare an ongoing and neglected chapter of modern history.