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Black Girl from Pyongyang: In Search of My Identity

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Non-Fiction Books» Biographies & True Stories» Biographies» Historical, Political and Military Biographies» Historical, Political and Military Autobiographies To celebrate, we are giving you a sneak peek at the inspirational quotes you will be able to find inside this small but beautiful book 🥰🎊 I liked the clear, simplistic prose and Macias does draw some interesting parallels between the places she's lived. But there is almost a clinical sense of curation in the selective stories she chooses to tell, as if it's an essay with a point to prove. In 1979, aged only seven, Monica Macias was transplanted from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea. She was sent by her father Francisco, the first president of post-Independence Equatorial Guinea, to be educated under the guardianship of his ally, Kim Il Sung. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises.

The author is the daughter of Francisco Macias, the president of Equatorial New Guinea, another country that I know nothing about, and had sent his daughter Monica to be brought up and educated in North Korea under the guidance of Kim II Sung at the age of 8. Monica's is an evocative memoir of a remarkable childhood followed by a decades-long search around the globe for her identity and the truth about her father. But beyond that, it is a stunning treatise on politics, power and culture' Florence Olajide, bestselling author of Coconut A fascinating account of a woman's quest for autonomy, and her bravery and determination to find the truth. It's an investigative story to understand her true father, a powerful but controversial figure, the real man behind his many personas. A woman who was raised between countries, in search of her true home' Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father As the daughter of Francisco Macias, the first president of Equatorial Guinea following its independence from colonial Spanish rule, and as someone who grew up in North Korea, then proceeded to live in Madrid, New York, London and Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, this had the makings of a fantastic social and political tour-de-force. However, for the most part, her observations only ran skin deep and felt like incredibly biased and misplaced generalisations.

Macias is the daughter of the late Francisco Macias, the erstwhile leader (/dictator) of Equatorial Guinea, which attained its independence from its coloniser Spain in 1968. In Beijing, singing karaoke with South Koreans, people she’d been taught to view as US puppets. Such meetings made her question the society in which she’d been raised. While Director O and my sister talked, Fran got up and walked out onto the balcony. I followed him. We gazed out over the sprawling grounds of the school, which was surrounded by a wooded park. From the balcony you could see five large buildings arranged around the school’s playing fields, housing a clinic, library, theatre/cinema, gym, canteen, laboratory and dormitory. Outside the main building loomed a large statue of Kim Il Sung.

Having had not one father figure viewers by the west as a dictator but two, the author's childhood is not what you'd call traditional.. Following her life from Equatorial Guinea, a childhood in North Korea and then as an adult, discovering her identity across the world, the story is intrinsically interesting. Monica Macias offers, and is intensely passionate about, an alternative to the western view of North Korea. That’s the bit that draws you in, but actually there is much more to the story. Monica is incredibly well traveled, having lived in many different cultures and societies. Every night, I spent hours crying in bed. At six a.m. the morning routine came around like a wheel to crush me. The reveille would sound. We had to run around the playing fields before breakfast. Classes began at eight a.m.From Porcelain to Palaces – A Journey Through the Cultural Heritage of the Joseon Dynasty, Wed 22 Nov 2023 (updated 31 Oct) Mónica Macías (born 1972) [ citation needed] is an Equatoguinean author. She is the daughter of the country's first president, Francisco Macías Nguema. [1] [2] She was raised in North Korea. The regime was harsh and she rebelled. Once, missing her siblings, who by now had moved to university halls, she ran away in the night, walking for hours to find them, which resulted in a huge dressing-down. “I was very lonely,” she says. She was banned from spending time outside school with her friends. It took years before Kim Il-sung granted her a special permit to leave school at weekends to visit her siblings and two former schoolmates, the sons of the president of Benin, who by then were living in a hostel for foreign students along with the handful of Russians, Chinese and Syrians studying in Pyongyang.

However, as an adult my sister showed me a letter that my father wrote to accompany us when we were sent to Pyongyang.My feisty attitude masked an acute sense of social rejection. I wanted desperately to blend in with my classmates, but their unspoken message seemed to be: ‘You are not Korean, you are not like us.’ Biology and history classes seemed geared to accentuate my difference. In history, we studied ancient Korea, from the Three Kingdoms era to the Koryŏ dynasty, the Chosŏn era to Japanese occupation. For a moment, my interest in my adoptive country would be piqued, until I would suddenly notice one of my classmates giving me a sly look that said, unmistakably: ‘This history has nothing to do with you.’ It was true. While for them this was the story of their grandparents and great-grandparents, for me it was just a class. Fascinating memoir. Monica Macias has led a very interesting and unexpected life, from growing up the daughter of a man remembered as a brutal dictator of Equatorial Guinea to being raised in North Korea under the protection of Kim Il-sung to her humble travels around the world to better understand her identity.

stars. A deeply intriguing and unique memoir of growing up in the Hermit Kingdom. Certainly the first I've read in defense of that state, and a reminder that we in the West are fed a very pejorative and slanted view that has little appreciation of the world from the North Korean point of view. Non-Fiction Books» Politics & Government» Political Ideologies & Movements» Far-Left Political Ideologies & Movements The subject material of this book is fascinating. The young daughter of the President of Equatorial Guinea goes to North Korea in the 1970s for her education and possibly safety. She remains there for some 15 years before setting out to explore the world and revisit her heritage. The trip sowed more doubt, not least after she ended up singing karaoke with tourists from South Korea, people she’d been brought up to pity as American puppets. She returned to Pyongyang, but was questioning her hermetic society even further. “It was as if I had walked onto a movie set and was reciting my lines of dialogue from an approved script.” She was sent to Pyongyang in 1979 with her siblings, Maribel and Fran, by their father Francisco Macias Nguema, the first president of Equatorial Guinea. She was seven and lived there for 15 years.Her “unusual” life story certainly gives her a unique vantage point from which to comment on global divisions. For Macias (who currently lives in London and works in a clothes shop) was born in 1971, the fourth child of the first legitimate president of independent Equatorial Guinea, Francois Macias. Fearing for her safety and seeking to strengthen his country’s ties with the communist bloc, he sent her to be raised in North Korea by the man she calls her “adoptive father”: Kim Il-sung. Shortly after she arrived in Pyongyang, aged eight, her father was accused of perpetrating atrocities and executed by firing squad – although nobody told her he was dead. It’s an interesting book at times and Macias has clearly led a very interesting life. The above quote though by Macias, referencing her experience of academic analysis of the North Korean regime, sums up my main gripe with the book. Smith, Julia Llewellyn (24 March 2023). "From one dictator dad to another: Monica's lost childhood in North Korea". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 2 April 2023.

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