Though North Korea holds the attention of the world, it is still rare for us to hear North Korean voices, beyond those few who have escaped. Known only by his pen name, the poet and author ‘Bandi’ stands as one of the most distinctive and original dissident writers to emerge from the country, and his work is all the more striking for the fact that he continues to reside in North Korea, writing in secret, with his work smuggled out of the country by supporters and relatives.

The Red Years represents the first collection of Bandi’s poetry to be made available in English. As he did in his first work The Accusation, Bandi here gives us a rare glimpse into everyday life and survival in North Korea. Singularly poignant and evocative, The Red Years stands as a testament to the power of the human spirit to endure and resist even the most repressive of regimes.

As a collection of poems by an anonymous North Korean dissident sees the light here for the first time, Katie Law learns the extraordinary story of how he risked his life to smuggle his work out of the country ... The Red Years, a slim volume of 51 short poems, makes for pretty depressing reading, the brutality of life under Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il expressed even more crudely than in the stories. * Evening Standard *
In 'The Red Years', we are shown the possibility of this kind of communal solidarity persisting. The collection, then, is a fragment of this private enclave – the ardent defense of an interiority unbroken by propaganda. * NK News *
Powerful insights into a world behind walls. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Guardian *
Courageous and confounding ... It's a quiet privilege to be given access to the voiceless by listening to such vivid and uncompromised storytelling. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, New Statesman *
A fierce indictment of life in the totalitarian North. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, New York Times *
Spare, direct, unflinching and bitterly angry. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Observer *
Bandi [presents] a world in which North Koreans are nuanced: broken-hearted, idealistic, still full of life. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Times Literary Supplement *
Its very existence is still a hopeful symbol that change is inevitable, if not imminent. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Vice *
Fascinating and chilling. Heartfelt and heartbreaking. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Margaret Atwood *

The author and poet known only as ‘Bandi’ (a pseudonym meaning ‘firefly’) spent his childhood in China before returning to North Korea, the country of his birth, as a young man. Initially writing for North Korean magazines, the focus of Bandi’s writing changed forever after the deaths of many people close to him during the great famine of the 1990s. The experiences of this time made him resolve to share with the outside world a true likeness of the harsh North Korean society as he himself saw it. With the help of a relative, he was able to smuggle a collection of his poems and stories to South Korea. The first part of this manuscript achieved international acclaim when it was published as the short story collection The Accusation: Forbidden Stories From Inside North Korea (2018).