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The Invitation-Only Zone

The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project

Robert S. Boynton

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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ISBN10: 0374536724
ISBN13: 9780374536725

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288 Pages

$20.00

CA$26.99

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For decades, North Korea denied any part in the disappearance of dozens of Japanese citizens from Japan’s coastal towns and cities in the late 1970s. But in 2002, with his country on the brink of collapse, Kim Jong-il admitted to the kidnapping of thirteen people and returned five of them in hopes of receiving Japanese aid. As part of a global espionage project, the regime had attempted to reeducate these abductees and make them spy on its behalf. When the scheme faltered, the captives were forced to teach Japanese to North Korean spies and make lives for themselves, marrying, having children, and posing as North Korean civilians in guarded communities known as “Invitation-Only Zones”—the fiction being that they were exclusive enclaves, not prisons.

From the moment Robert S. Boynton saw a photograph of these men and women, he became obsessed with their story. Torn from their homes as young adults, living for a quarter century in a strange and hostile country, they were returned with little more than an apology from the secretive regime.

In The Invitation-Only Zone, Boynton untangles the bizarre logic behind the abductions. Drawing on extensive interviews with the abductees, Boynton reconstructs the story of their lives inside North Korea and ponders the existential toll the episode has had on them, and on Japan itself. He speaks with nationalists, spies, defectors, diplomats, abductees, and even crab fishermen, exploring the cultural and racial tensions between Korea and Japan that have festered for more than a century.

A deeply reported, thoroughly researched book, The Invitation-Only Zone is a riveting story of East Asian politics and of the tragic human consequences of North Korea’s zealous attempt to remain relevant in the modern world.

Reviews

Praise for The Invitation-Only Zone

"Boynton . . . gives us a riveting portrait of these bizarre kidnappings . . . His musings about Japan’s reaction to the abductions, ‘Japan’s 9/11,’ and the sudden realization ‘that the world was more dangerous than it had thought’ are cogent. His study of the ordeal that the abductees went through is moving.”—Sheila Miyoshi Jager, The New York Times Book Review

"In dealing with North Korea, Japanese policymakers focus as much on what they call 'the abductee issue' as on the issue of nuclear weapons. In the 1970s and 1980s, North Korean agents seized an unknown number—perhaps hundreds—of Japanese citizens from beaches and city streets, smuggling them to North Korea to serve as language instructors, potential spies, and in other roles that apparently were not well thought out. Some may have been killed so that their identities could be assumed by North Korean agents. Boynton vividly describes the bizarre experiences of some of the victims, who were forced to feign loyalty to the North Korean system—and in some cases actually came to support the regime of Kim Il Sung. So far, Pyongyang has allowed five abductees to return to Japan with their children and has identified eight who it claims have died of natural causes. This accounting has done little to satisfy Japanese public opinion, which is anxious about Japan’s vulnerability to its neighbor’s unpredictable acts. For its part, North Korea points out that during World War II, Japan abducted a far greater number of Korean citizens to serve in mines, on farms, and in factories, and many of them died or remain unaccounted for."—Andrew J. Nathan, Foreign Affairs

“A thorough investigative report into the systematic abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Korean intelligence network over many decades. . . . More than anecdotal stories, [Boynton's] work zeroes in on the deeply uneasy makeup of the Korean-Japanese relationship. Engaging reading, surreal in some of the Orwellian detail.”—Kirkus Reviews

"An excellent work that is an optimal choice for both North Korea and Japan watchers." —Joshua Wallace, Library Journal (starred review)

"Boynton has done his homework well, converting the suffering inflicted on a few dozen individuals into an eye-opening and surprisingly moving narrative.”—Publishers Weekly

Reviews from Goodreads

BOOK EXCERPTS

Read an Excerpt

1

WELCOME TO THE INVITATION-ONLY ZONE



On the evening of July 13, 1978, Kaoru Hasuike and his girlfriend, Yukiko Okudo, rode bikes to the summer fireworks festival at the Kashiwazaki town beach. The cool night...

About the author

Robert S. Boynton

Robert S. Boynton’s journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. He is the author of The New New Journalism and directs the Literary Reportage program at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University.

TK

Robert S. Boynton's faculty profile