Over the past 20 years, 33,000 North Korean refugees have escaped to South Korea, though their plight in South Korea is largely unknown to the Western World. These North Korean refugees who have made it to freedom are struggling.

Within South Korea, North Koreans find themselves in a land of plenty but can’t seem to move on. For many, they are not in danger for the first time in decades but cannot turn off the traumatic memories from their lives in North Korea and the peril they faced during their escape. After fleeing North Korea, refugees travel the 6,000 mile modern day underground railroad in China and other Asian countries.

Gathered from the author's work with the NGO, Crossing Borders, this book shares the real life stories of North Koreans trapped under the weight of lingering trauma, depression, and discrimination in South Korea. These stories help us to imagine what the future might hold for North Korea and North Korean refugees in a changing world.

The few North Koreans who manage to cross the border to China risk arrest, repatriation, and incarceration in a North Korean prison camps for the “crime” of having left their country. Or, if they are lucky, they find their way to Dan Chung, an American Christian who has been secretly helping North Korean refugees in China for more than 20 years. “A Hard Freedom” is Dan’s gripping memoir of his dangerous work with the world’s most oppressed people as they learn how to survive outside the Orwellian constraints of their homeland, where citizens’ every move is determined by the state. The individual trauma of these escapees foreshadows the difficulties inherent in any reunification of the two Koreas. -- Melanie Kirkpatrick, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad

Dan Chung is the co-founder of Crossing Borders, and current Executive Director of the organization. Dan is one of the foremost experts on the North Korean refugee crisis, with relationships with both organizations and scholars researching the ongoing developments of the Korean Peninsula.