Monica Macias’ life almost reads like a movie script. At eight years old she is sent with her two siblings to North Korea by her father, Francisco Macias Ngeuma, then president of Equatorial Guinea. The timing proves to be fortuitous: her father is executed by coup forces some time later. Kim Il Sung and her father were friends, and the remaining Macias family is allowed to stay in the North Korean capital. Monica attends the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and then Pyongyang School of Engineering, all the while learning how to speak, think, and act like a North Korean. Throughout this period she experiences highs and lows: friendship, isolation, lost love, and – coinciding with her decision to travel abroad – an identity crisis.

This identity crisis is sparked largely by her interaction with other foreigners in Pyongyang. They appear to view her “North Korean thinking” with discomfort, and she begins to question what things are like in the outside world. She first heads to China, then after graduation moves to Spain. She spends several years in the U.S. and South Korea until finally going back home to Equatorial Guinea. During her travels, she learns more about her father and questions the world’s negative opinion about him (he is considered by many to have been a ruthless dictator). She also questions foreign attitudes toward North Korea.

▲ “Pyongyang Syndrome”

Monica’s life in North Korea was centered in Pyongyang. The capital city and crown jewel of the North Korean state, Pyongyang has been praised for being a clean and even friendly city. However, it is something of a Potemkin Village; a place where only the elite and ideologically fit are allowed to live. Some foreign observers have tried to view North Korea through the prism of Pyongyang, and misrepresented the country as a result. Testimony by defectors has shown that the situation in the rest of the country – from medical to education services – is of a much lower standard than in Pyongyang.

The cover of “I am Monica from Pyongyang.” (Wisdom House)

Unfortunately, Monica’s book is affected severely by her restricted and relatively isolated experience in Pyongyang. Meetings with her “step-father” were distant, brief affairs from the early years, and accordingly barely make mention in the book. Her observations of life in Pyongyang are similarly plagued by generalizations that, given her undoubted Korean language ability, only confirm her extreme isolation. She does have North Korean friends, but details of conversations with them are absent from the book. If anything, she confirms above all the stifling regimentation of North Korean society.

Macias’ unique insights, when they come, are into lives of foreigners in the country in the 1980s and early 1990s. She recalls that they lived in a wholly different sphere than ordinary North Koreans: watching foreign movies and listening to South Korean music were both common, for example.

▲ “Views on North Korea from Abroad”

After leaving North Korea and while living in Spain, the US and South Korea, Macias attempts to gauge the similarities and differences of her life in North Korea with the outside world. She correctly points out that South Korean perspectives toward North Korea are based on narrow assumptions and that people too often emphasize differences rather than similarities between the two Koreas. Her criticism of the U.S. is strange, however. She asks whether Americans are really afforded more freedom than North Koreans, and says that the U.S. and North Korea are essentially the same, minus the former’s economic prosperity. These observations are obtuse and appear overly broad.

Ultimately, it is her story of seeking out the truth of her father’s history that takes center stage in the book. She tries to come to terms with his image of a ruthless dictator. She eventually (and perhaps unsurprisingly) chooses a narrative that portrays him in a positive light; essentially, he was the victim of a Spanish-led coup attempt. She interestingly points out that her father did not share ideology with Kim Il Sung, but fails to mention his cult of personality (which mirrored Kim Il Sung’s). Ultimately, readers without a deep knowledge of Equatorial Guinean history, politics and culture will be left wondering what to believe.

All in all, Monica’s book tells the story of a unique life and one that only she could write. Unfortunately, however, it provides little new insight into North Korea, while her objectivity towards the question of her father’s history produces more questions than answers.