On March 17, 2009, Laura Ling and her colleague, Euna Lee were apprehended by fearsome North Korean soldiers and violently dragged through the forests along the China-North Korea border and across the Tumen River. They had been working on a television project about the human trafficking crisis that China and North Korea have been trying to cover up for years.
Shortly after, the battered and terrified women were brought before North Korea's Supreme Court and were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in notorious gulag-style camps. They were the first Americans ever tried before the court.
Forming half of the story of Somewhere Inside, Laura provides a gripping account of struggle at the hands of the North Korean guards, as well as her cunning in being able to befriend some of the guards. For her meals in prison, Laura was given rice mixed with rocks before being subject to rounds of harrowing interrogations. Throughout her five months of imprisonment, Laura experienced the darkest moments of her life as she began to come to terms with the possibility that she might never see her family again.
After hearing of Laura's capture, Laura's sister, world-renowned journalist Lisa Ling, immediately thrust herself into private and public efforts to help secure Laura and Euna's release. She was unrelenting in her mission. Lisa recounts insider conversations with people in the highest levels of government, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, Senator John Kerry, and Governor Bill Richardson, among others. She also shares insights into the balancing of agendas and egos with which she had to juggle.
From opposite ends of the world, Laura and Lisa Ling became an unprecedented channel of communication between North Korea, one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet, and its archenemy, the United States. Somewhere Inside is a story of survival, sisterhood and the ignition of a new relationship between two nations that have been at war for more than half a century.
I don't think I could survive something like that. I'm very interested in hearing the story of how they were able to live through it.
