Reddit reviews Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor

Someone needs to make sure every young Chinese students finds out they are not allowed to read http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0231147465?pc_redir=1406819869&robot_redir=1

Awsome book on the subject, Kim Yong's - Long Road Home: http://www.amazon.com/Long-Road-Home-Testimony-Survivor/dp/0231147465

One of very few people to have ever escape forced labour camps under Kim Jong-il and write about it. Just excrutiating living conditions.

Eyes of the Tailless Animals and Long Road Home may interest you as well. There are a couple of books about the original Gulags in the Soviet Union (what Kim Il-Sung modeled the NK gulags after) that are excellent reads. Let me know if you want those.

There's a good book from a defector who was at one point moving through the party ranks before his family history caught up to him (he was an orphan whose parentage wasn't initially known).

I think this is it... but I'm not entirely sure. Read it for sophomore year in college.

Anyways, the guy ends up imprisoned, and when he's given some level of leniency and sent to a "nicer" camp, he basically still sees it as a sign of the benevolence of the great Kim Jong-Il. It's a pretty interesting look into the mental state of a North Korean who grew up in that environment.