Joseph Kim is from the northern region of North Korea. Growing up during the great famine of the 1990s, at the age of 12 Joseph saw his father starve to death, his mother disappear and his sister flee to China to search for food. In 2006, when he was 16, he decided to make the dangerous escape alone out of North Korea to look for food -- and for his sister. While hiding in China, he met a Korean-Chinese grandmother who protected and fed him until he found help from Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), a NGO that provided more stabilized shelter and later helped him to escape to the United States.
Joseph arrived in the U.S. in 2007 as a refugee. He is now in college studying international business. He is still searching for his sister.
“In my mind, I thought death is death, whether I die of starvation or from being caught by the North Korean authorities.” — Joseph Kim
Two decades ago, millions of North Koreans faced widespread famine, and many families would do just about anything to feed their children. In an edited excerpt from his memoir, Joseph Kim describes life during the famine -- and one haunting consequence of his hunger.
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