“Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West” by Blaine Harden unlocks the secrets of the world’s most totalitarian state through the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only person known to have successfully escaped an internment camp in North Korea.

The book begins with a dedication to the North Koreans who still remain in the camps today and a quote from the [North] Korean Central News Agency saying, “There is no ‘human rights issue’ in this country, as everyone leads the most dignified and happy life.”

According to Harden, North Korea’s political prison camps have lasted 12 times as long as Nazi concentration camps and are visible through satellite images, yet the government continues to deny the existence of these forced labor prisons. Escape from Camp 14 not only validates the presence of the camps, but also reveals the drastically different upbringing of children born in them and the squalid conditions prisoners suffer from.

North Korea’s “three generations of punishment” rule is the reason why Shin Dong-hyuk was at Camp 14. He was born from an arranged marriage of two prisoners, who were allowed to sleep together a few nights a year as a reward for hard work and snitching on other prisoners. As a result, Shin barely knew his father and saw his mother as a competitor for food, often stealing her lunch while she was working. The lack of affection that children born in prison experience is emphasized during the preface when Shin witnesses the execution of his mother and brother and instead of feeling sorrow, feels relief that it was not him.

In grade school, children are not taught how to read or write by nurturing teachers, but are educated by a uniform-wearing, pistol-carrying supervisor to obey guards and be aware of the traitorous blood they inherited. By learning about this, readers understand the exploitation of the youth and the loss of innocence in these children. In Shin’s class, classmates even turned on one another to prevent collective punishment and in once a classmate was beaten to death by the teacher for stealing five kernels of corn.

The description of the prisoners’ living circumstances are agonizing and leave a lasting impact in the readers’ mind. They are overworked and tortured severely for small mistakes and offences. For example, Shin’s middle finger was cut off when he accidentally dropped a sewing machine while working in a garment factory. Harden’s recounts of Shin’s tortures makes it hard to believe that such unreasonable acts of violence are still perpetrated and brings out the compassion in the reader.

Despite the distressing accounts of Shin’s life in Camp 14, his miraculous escape inspires hope and affirms faith in the reader. This book is a wake up call to the world about the corruption and violation of human rights that still exist in North Korean government.

This New York Times’ Bestseller is available for order online and in major bookstores and libraries. It has been critically acclaimed and is “a riveting, remarkable book that should be required in every high school or college civics class,” according to the The Seattle Times.

While he stayed in Southern California, Shin Dong-hyuk worked for Liberty in North Korea, a non-profit organization that raises awareness of human rights issues in North Korea and provides aid for North Korean refugees. In August 2013, Shin Dong-hyuk testified for several hours at the United Nations’ first commission of inquiry into human rights abuses of North Korea.