The Invitation-Only Zone
The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project
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Narrated by:
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Ralph Lister
About this listen
Throughout the late 1970s and early '80s, dozens of Japanese citizens were abducted from coastal Japanese towns by North Korean commandos. In what proved to be part of a global project, North Korea attempted to reeducate the abductees and train them to spy on the state's behalf. When the project faltered, the abductees were hidden in a series of guarded communities known as "Invitation-Only Zones" - the fiction being that these were exclusive enclaves, not prisons.
In 2002, Kim Jong Il admitted to kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens and returned five of them (the other eight, he said, had died). From the moment that Robert S. Boynton first saw a photograph of these men and women, he became obsessed with the window their story provided into the vexed politics of Northeast Asia. In The Invitation-Only Zone, he untangles the logic behind the kidnappings and shows why some Japanese citizens described them as "their 9/11". He tells the story of how dozens were abducted and reeducated; how they married and had children; and how they lived anonymously as North Korean citizens. He speaks with nationalists, diplomats, abductees, and even crab fishermen, unearthing the bizarre North Korean propaganda tactics and the peculiar cultural interests of both countries.
A deeply reported, thoroughly researched treatise on the power struggle of one of the most important areas in the global economy, Boynton's keen investigation is riveting and revelatory.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2016 Robert S. Boynton (P)2015 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators—her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy—the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father.
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Insightful and thoroughly researched
- By Jean on 06-16-15
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A Kim Jong-Il Production
- The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power
- By: Paul Fischer
- Narrated by: Stephen Park
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and its film studios. Conceiving every movie made, he acted as producer and screenwriter. Despite this control, he was underwhelmed by the available talent and took drastic steps, ordering the kidnapping of Choi Eun-Hee (Madam Choi) - South Korea's most famous actress - and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country's most famous filmmaker.
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Absolutely terrifying
- By Anonymous on 02-19-15
By: Paul Fischer
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The General's Son
- Journey of an Israeli in Palestine
- By: Miko Peled
- Narrated by: Miko Peled
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The journey that Peled traces in this groundbreaking memoir echoed the trajectory taken 40 years earlier by his father, renowned Israeli general Matti Peled. In The General's Son, Miko Peled tells us about growing up in Jerusalem in the heart of the group that ruled the then-young country, Israel. He takes us with him through his service in the country's military and his subsequent global travels...and then, after his niece's killing, back into the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians.
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Thought Provoking and Powerful
- By FatherRobC on 05-10-16
By: Miko Peled
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Prague Winter
- A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948
- By: Madeleine Albright
- Narrated by: Madeleine Albright
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Before Madeleine Albright turned twelve, her life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia—the country where she was born—the Battle of Britain, the near total destruction of European Jewry, the Allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. Albright's experiences, and those of her family, provide a lens through which to view the most tumultuous dozen years in modern history.
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History from a Personal Perspective
- By Jeanette Finan on 02-22-13
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A Rope and a Prayer
- The Story of a Kidnapping
- By: David Rohde, Kristen Mulvihill
- Narrated by: David Rohde, Kristen Mulvihill
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The compelling and insightful account of a New York Times reporter's abduction by the Taliban and his wife's struggle to free him. Invited to an interview by a Taliban commander, New York Times reporter David Rohde and two Afghan colleagues were kidnapped in November 2008 and spirited to the tribal areas of Pakistan. For the next seven months, they lived in an alternate reality, ruled by jihadists, in which paranoia, conspiracy theories, and shifting alliances abounded.
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A History Lesson
- By Ed on 12-31-10
By: David Rohde, and others
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There Was a Country
- A Personal History of Biafra
- By: Chinua Achebe
- Narrated by: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The defining experience of Chinua Achebe's life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967-1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe's people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than 40 years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa's most fateful events.
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The Audible Edition Is a Disaster
- By Olu on 11-28-12
By: Chinua Achebe
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Out of Mao's Shadow
- The Struggle for the Soul of a New China
- By: Philip P. Pan
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Prize-winning journalist Philip P. Pan offers an unprecedented inside look at the momentous battle underway for China's future. On one side is the entrenched party elite determined to preserve its authoritarian grip on power. On the other is a collection of lawyers, journalists, entrepreneurs, activists, hustlers, and dreamers striving to build a more tolerant, open, and democratic China.
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Great insight into changes in China
- By Paul on 04-14-09
By: Philip P. Pan
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Lenin's Tomb
- The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
- By: David Remnick
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 29 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this best-selling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism.
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The moral complexity of a comic book
- By Tot on 02-22-19
By: David Remnick
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The Train to Crystal City
- FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II
- By: Jan Jarboe Russell
- Narrated by: Andrea Gallo
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The dramatic and never-before-told story of a secret FDR-approved American internment camp in Texas during World War II, where thousands of families - many US citizens - were incarcerated.
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I didn't know...
- By Graham Emslie on 02-27-17
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Lioness
- Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel
- By: Francine Klagsbrun
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 32 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Golda Meir was a world figure unlike any other. Born in tsarist Russia in 1898, she immigrated to America in 1906 and grew up in Milwaukee, where from her earliest years she displayed the political consciousness and organizational skills that would eventually catapult her into the inner circles of Israel's founding generation. Moving to mandatory Palestine in 1921 with her husband, the passionate socialist joined a kibbutz but soon left and was hired at a public works office by the man who would become the great love of her life.
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The persistent mispronunciations of Hebrew and Yiddish words ruined this performance
- By YH-O on 12-30-18
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Spies in the Family
- An American Spymaster, His Russian Crown Jewel, and the Friendship That Helped End the Cold War
- By: Eva Dillon
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1975, 17-year-old Eva Dillon's family was living in New Delhi when her father was exposed as a CIA spy. Eva had long believed that her father was a US State Department employee. She had no idea that he was handling the CIA's highest ranking double agent - Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov, a Soviet general whose code name was TOPHAT. Dillon's father and Polyakov had a close friendship that went back years, to their first meeting in Burma in the mid-1960s.
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LOVED it!
- By SaraofDI on 11-06-17
By: Eva Dillon
What listeners say about The Invitation-Only Zone
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- John Brown
- 11-28-16
Amazing research
Robert does an amazing job humanizing the sad and tangled stories of each abductee. His ability to provide context was the highlight for me.
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1 person found this helpful
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- brian
- 01-13-16
A story now told.
Would you listen to The Invitation-Only Zone again? Why?
I would
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Invitation-Only Zone?
The kidnappings being admitted to.
What aspect of Ralph Lister’s performance would you have changed?
I would've hired John Lee as narrator.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Not that I can recall.
Any additional comments?
A must-have for anyone wishing to learn more about North Korea.
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2 people found this helpful
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- AJW
- 02-14-16
Over enthusiastic reader!
I prefer books to be read , not performed . I felt this narrator's delivery detracted from the content. I couldn't and won't listen to him again. Book content is OK, but doesn't draw any good conclusions.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Rodney
- 06-24-19
So-so
The book covers a lot of area that has been covered before - there was very little, if anything, that was new. But if you're new to the subject this is an OK way to learn some basics. As for the author, he gives his notes at the end, and it's never a good sign when they use the word "I" more than anything else. I don't think the author here is a millennial, but he falls into that awful self-absorbed, me first, I, I, I mindset and it's really annoying. Luckily OK of the book is free from that.
The reader did an OK job, not good, not bad, solid 3 stars, will get the job done.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Darlene C.
- 07-30-16
Waste of a credit
If you are having trouble sleeping then this book is perfect. It's beyond boring.
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