The Red Years: Forbidden Poems from Inside North Korea

Bandi The Red Years: Forbidden Poems from Inside North Korea Trans. Heinz Insu Fenkl. London. Zed Books. 2019. 208 pages.

TRANSLATOR HEINZ INSU FENKLE writes in his introduction to Bandi's The Red Years: "There are still numerous places where imprisonment, torture, and execution are things a writer must carefully consider." Bandi, a North Korean writer and dissident, produces work that is truly urgent in a sense that it has terrifying ramifications for the safety of real people. Bandi, who could not escape himself, passed on his manuscript to a relative, who smuggled it out of North Korea. The...