Black Girl from Pyongyang: In Search of My Identity

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She mentions that some North Korean defectors in Seoul, South Korea, talk about returning. I have heard this. This is because they come to South Korea totally unequipped to deal with the high pressure, capitalist life there. Nevertheless, I'm not sure if this makes a compelling argument why North (a hereditary dictatorship) and South (a functioning democracy) should be regarded equally. In Spain, for the first time, she heard people badmouth her two father figures. She heard Macias described as “the dictator of dictators, a despicable human being”. “It was the most difficult thing to think my father was a killer. I never said my full name to people.” One man followed her on the street. He said he knew who she was and would kill her. This is the story of Monica Macias, daughter of the former first president of Equatorial Guinea Francisco Macias, he sent her and two siblings to North Korea to be taken care of by his friend Kim Il Sung and shortly after this he was executed leaving them to grow up there and to know this as home. My anguish drove me to refuse all food. For a month, nothing passed my lips but water. My weight plummeted, raising fears that I might die. I was taken to Ponghwa hospital, where I was put on a glucose drip that kept me alive. Even there, my nights were spent crying: ‘I want my mum.’ 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.

Within months, her father was executed in a military coup; her mother became unreachable. Effectively orphaned, she and two siblings had to make their life in Pyongyang. Not just your run of the mill memoir, it's the life story of a Guinean girl who grows up in North Korea, even more, the youngest daughter of the 1st President of independent Equatorial Guinea raised in North Korea under the protection of Kim Il-Sung... who keeps trying to find out who she is with her mixed identity while also trying to reconcile the two men so crucial in her life, who the world sees as horrific, with the direct experience of them she had. I like how personal this book is. I felt like I got to know the author. She is not afraid of realizing she is wrong, or that there are things she does not know, and she is not afraid of letting other people know that the way they see the world is not the whole truth either. You won't find a recounting of atrocities or a political discussion on the merits or demerits of such complicated places as North Korea or a country immersed in post colonial dynamics like Equatorial Guinea, but her story is full of daily life experiences, with highs and lows, with lovely friendships and bittersweet memories, of real people living in real places even if that place is Pyongyang. A fascinating account of a woman’s quest for autonomy, and her bravery and determination to find the truth’Optimistic yet unflinching, Monica’s astonishing and unique story challenges us to see the world through different eyes. More info Today, Monica Macias lives in a south London suburb and works on the shop floor of a well-known clothes chain. No customer could even begin to guess her extraordinary childhood divided between two countries that were among the worst in terms of political rights and civil liberties, effectively parentless from the age of 7 and brought up in a military boarding school. Having previously read books from “defectors” of North Korea and the terrible lives that they suffered there, it was interesting to read a different perspective from someone who had a more positive outlook on the country and to be able to look at things through a different viewpoint. We go on Monica’s journey through life as she learns who she is and who her father and adoptive father are to the rest of the world. What a strange but incredible life she has led. Macias considers that she had two fathers, both reviled by the world. She is Brown (self-identifying, as she is from an Equatoguinean father and a Spanish-Equatoguinean mother), yet she is culturally Asian, and Korean to be specific. She is completely dislocated from her father’s culture, except as she encountered it as an adult (and she hates the food, except for plantains). The memories of those closest to her of Francisco Macias, and their accounts of his rule, do not align with the world’s image of him, which she attributes to propaganda created by Equatorial Guinea’s former colonisers, the Spanish, and her father’s Equatoguinean enemies. At the beginning of the book, she promises to outline evidence that her father was not as bad as he was portrayed to be, and was rather the victim of circumstances, but she does not do this. Instead, she talks briefly about how people around him were killing innocent people in his name, without presenting evidence.

In 1979, Monica Macias, aged only seven, 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. Within months, her father was executed in a military coup; her mother became unreachable. Effectively orphaned, she and two siblings had to make their life in Pyongyang. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises. Macias’ experiences living in the two Koreas helped her develop an insider’s view of inter-Korea issues. 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. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises.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. Her life is obviously very interesting but she seems to have missed the chance to give us details of what is obviously an extremely interesting life and it is more just brief descriptions of what she did from year to year. Much of the book is about her search for the truth about her father, who was the president of Equatorial Guinea and had been accused of various crimes and executed when the author was young. She presented her findings that called everything she had been told into question. 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.