aviyalbookclub-blog

[aviyalbookclub-blog]

These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone - by tensula Ao

What struck me about this author is her name.She was last named after her mother toungue - "Ao".  In india , only we tamilians  have the reputation of bearing of our mother toungue "tamil" in our names.   There are places in the stories which woud make you travel to the very landscape the athor has chosen to write this book on - Nagaland! The author has communicated the hardships faced by the people of nagaland in this book simple & straight forward. 'Ao' introduces reader to the different ways the army  infiltrate local groups. In one particular story the author writes about a specific type of punishment where the resistant local tribes and their families are shifted from their native terrain to a completely new place. What if there are no borders in this world? would that stop all this killing and torture of fellow beings? Who decides that one set of people has to continuously suffer so that the other set of people thrive ? If you are a reader not dwelled only on complex books and novels , this is a simple yet touching book.

#books and libraries #bookblogger #bookblr #book review #bookvibes #books

[aviyalbookclub-blog]

Check out our member prashanthi’s take on a book she read. 

“You don’t choose to be born. You just are. And your birth is your destiny, some say. I say the hell with that. And I should know. I was born not just once but five times. And five times I learned the same lesson, Sometimes in life, you have to grab your so-called destiny by the throat and wring it’s neck”

Powerful opening lines of the book “A river in darkness” is a memoir by Masaji Ishikawa, a man who managed to escape from North Korea. Masaji was born in Japan, to a Japanese mother and Korean father. Right after world war II, when Masaji was about 13yrs old, his parents (mostly his father) decide to relocate to North Korea. A lot of North Koreans were brought to Japan as laborers during World War II. Post war, Japan’s economy collapsed and North Korea needed man power to rebuild the nation. There was a call-back for its citizens, It was advertised as the land of opportunities, “the paradise on earth”. Mass relocation happened during that time. But these innocent people didn’t know that they were about to move from a life of poverty to HELL.

The miseries that the North Koreans face are beyond description. Everyone, including the old and sick have to toil to earn their food. Masaji’s mother was not recognized as a citizen, since she was Japanese and hence assigned no work or food. The family, which included his parents and 3 younger siblings, had to sustain with the limited food. The living conditions weren’t any great either, sustaining snowfall weather without a proper roof or furniture. With such hunger, poverty and anguish, all social ethics breakdown. Begging, theft, stealing, killing, backstabbing is the norm. People try to survive at any cost… it really puts our life and problems into perspective.

Masaji tries hard to keep his family and children alive. Babies born and die without nourishment. With the death of Kim Il-sung, the country plunges further down into economic crisis and poverty. Food barely adequate, people try to boil and eat tree barks, weeds, mushrooms, anything that can be considered even remotely edible. The narration continues on, through his sisters’ marriages, his marriage, kids born, death of family members and how he faced it all.

Finally, he reaches a breaking point when he has 3 kids with no means of getting a job or money to take care of them. With death so imminent, Masaji thinks he can at-least die trying to escape from there than to die out of starvation. He makes a plan, with no money or food, to travel towards China border and cross the river. From there contact the Japanese embassy, ask them to take him back to Japan. Once back in Japan, he can meet his relatives, find a job and send some money back to his wife and children in North Korea. With great difficulty he manages to do so and reaches Japan. Did his dreams finally come true? Was he able to salvage his family?

Written as a short and crisp first hand narrative, it is a gripping novel.

#books and libraries #bookblogger #bookvibes #bokstagram #bookblr #book review