We frequently aim to pull the curtain back on stories that are hidden or hard to understand?whether they’re political campaigns or scientific breakthroughs. But when it comes to the nation and story of North Korea, the curtain is more like an unscalable wall surrounded by an electric barbed wire fence; few people from the outside are truly able to access what’s so well hidden.

Today, however, we speak with a journalist who’s intimately acquainted with North Korea. Her name is Barbara Demick, and she’s the author of ?Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.? Her award-winning book tells the personal stories of six North Koreans over the past fifteen years ? some who’ve escaped North Korea, others who go back and forth.