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Bandi (the pseudonym of a North Korean journalist) wrote the stories in The Accusation between 1989 and 1995 – the last years of the reign of current ruler Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung. The Party takes a short view of anything remotely critical, so the manuscript was hidden away until a chance to smuggle it out of the country presented itself. According to the book’s afterword, it was nearly two decades before that opportunity arose. Unknown to Bandi, a plan was put in motion that ended with a stranger showing up at his door and asking for the manuscript. The author was hesitant at first, but ultimately handed it over, looking “as though it made no difference whether he died like this or like that.”

The stories, based on real-life anecdotes Bandi collected with a journalist’s ear for a good story, are a frank look at the life of regular citizens trying to get by under a repressive regime. Many of the characters fail to grasp the reality of the world in which they live, either through ignorance, stubbornness, or a misguided hope that the regime is more reasonable than it really is. In one, the mother of a sick and crying child scares him into calm by saying a picture of Marx is an evil spirit who punishes disobedient children. It works, temporarily, but causes the child to cry whenever he sees the picture. To prevent more crying, she keeps her curtains drawn, which prompts the suspicion of the local Party Secretary. The mother assumes the Party Secretary will be sympathetic to how the situation developed, but instead, the family is exiled for “making coarse remarks about the portrait of Karl Marx.”