The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea

"One of the most important and devastating accounts of life inside a totalitarian society."( Commentary 2008-05-01) "Jenkins's book is oddly compelling. The blank ordinariness of his character brings out the moral and physical ugliness of life in North Korea." ( The New Yorker 2008-03-24) Charles Robert Jenkins was a former United States Army soldier who lived in North Korea from 1965 to 2004. He lived in Sado, Japan with his family until he died in December 2017. Jim Frederick was a contributing editor at TIME Magazine. He was previously editor of TIME's International editions, Editor of TIME.com as well as an Executive Editor. From 2006 to 2008, he was a Senior Editor in TIME's London office and, before that, TIME's Tokyo Bureau Chief.xa0He is the author of the critically acclaimed "Black Hearts. One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death" (Crown Publishing, 2010) which the New York Times Book Review called "Riveting... A narrative that combines elements of 'In Cold Blood' and 'Black Hawk Down' with a touch of 'Apocalypse Now' as it builds toward its terrible climax... Frederick's extraordinary book is a testament to a misconceived war, and to the ease with which ordinary men, under certain conditions, can transform into monsters... Extraordinary." The Guardian called it "the best book by far about the Iraq war - a rare combination of cold truth and warm compassion."xa0Frederick is co-author, with former US Army Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins, of "The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea," (University of California Press, 2008) which Commentary magazine called "one of the most important and devastating accounts of life inside a totalitarian society." He graduated with a BA in English Literature from Columbia University and received an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. Frederick died suddenly in 2014 shortly after he and his wife moved from New York City to San Francisco to focus on writing books and screenplays. From The New Yorker In January, 1965, Jenkins was a U.S. Army sergeant stationed in South Korea. Sure that he was about to be sent to Vietnam, he drank ten beers, abandoned his patrol, and crossed into North Korea. He spent the next four decades in a country that had become "a giant, demented prison," until the Japanese government secured his release, along with that of his Japanese wife, who had been abducted by the North Koreans. Jenkins’s book is oddly compelling. The blank ordinariness of his character brings out the moral and physical ugliness of life in North Korea, where soldiers steal and beg for food; a dog digs up a fresh mass grave (and the next day all the dogs in the neighborhood are shot); and Jenkins awakens to the bleak, deadening realization that his two daughters are being groomed as spies. "I would always tell them, ‘we are not in the real world. This is not the real world,’" Jenkins writes of his daughters. "But they didn’t believe me." Copyright ©2008 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker --This text refers to the hardcover edition. "This story by Robert Jenkins of his four decades in North Korea represents a rare opportunity to view life in one of the most reclusive societies in the world, offering unprecedented insights for both specialists and the general reader."―Robert Scalapino, University of California, Berkeley"This is an incredible story of betrayal, love and the search for redemption. Robert Jenkins is a modern-day Robinson Crusoe, isolated from the outside world, and relying on his wits to survive in a nightmarish parody of a nation where nothing is as it seems. Living in constant fear and violence, Jenkins's efforts to grow food, dig a well, heat his home, generate electricity and to find companionship, trust and ultimately love, lend this rough and ready narrative an unexpected depth. Set within the bizarre and Orwellian surroundings of North Korea during the late 20th century, Jenkins's account is like no other I've ever read."―Jasper Becker, author of Rogue Regime: The Continuing Threat of North Korea "Charles Jenkins' memoir is a genuinely unique account of the only American ever to live in North Korea for most of his life and return to write about it. Part biography, part eyewitness testimony, part apology, this book takes Mr. Jenkins from a childhood in the segregated South to a U.S. Army ruling the roost in South Korea in the 1950s, to a North Korea that saw him as a real-life Martian, but a valuable one for use in Cold War propaganda."―Bruce Cummings, Chairman of the History Department at the University of Chicago --This text refers to the hardcover edition. From the Inside Flap "This story by Robert Jenkins of his four decades in North Korea represents a rare opportunity to view life in one of the most reclusive societies in the world, offering unprecedented insights for both specialists and the general reader."—Robert Scalapino, University of California, Berkeley"This is an incredible story of betrayal, love and the search for redemption. Robert Jenkins is a modern-day Robinson Crusoe, isolated from the outside world, and relying on his wits to survive in a nightmarish parody of a nation where nothing is as it seems. Living in constant fear and violence, Jenkins's efforts to grow food, dig a well, heat his home, generate electricity and to find companionship, trust and ultimately love, lend this rough and ready narrative an unexpected depth. Set within the bizarre and Orwellian surroundings of North Korea during the late 20th century, Jenkins's account is like no other I've ever read."—Jasper Becker, author of Rogue Regime: The Continuing Threat of North Korea "Charles Jenkins' memoir is a genuinely unique account of the only American ever to live in North Korea for most of his life and return to write about it. Part biography, part eyewitness testimony, part apology, this book takes Mr. Jenkins from a childhood in the segregated South to a U.S. Army ruling the roost in South Korea in the 1950s, to a North Korea that saw him as a real-life Martian, but a valuable one for use in Cold War propaganda."—Bruce Cummings, Chairman of the History Department at the University of Chicago --This text refers to the hardcover edition. Read more