Quest for Freedom

Originally written in Korean and translated into English, QUEST FOR FREEDOM covers Young-hwan Kim's activities as the leading student activist in South Korea in the 1980s. It chronicles Kim's efforts—past and present—to reach out to the international community for support for his mission to free North Korean people from tyranny.

During the 1980s, Kim's heavy criticisms against the South Korean government and America resonated with the young. He organized underground groups to resist the South Korean government as a pro-North Korea advocate, even traveling to North Korea to meet with Kim Il-Sung on two separate occasions. But his view of the Great Leader changed after these meetings. Hoping to engage the Great Leader in meaningful discussions about Juche, Marxism, and socialist principles, he instead was forced to listen to the man talk only about himself for hours. And when the mid-1990s saw the dawn of a great famine, leading to the loss of three million lives, YH Kim resolved that democratization of North Korea was the only way to to save the people, and organized a group of underground activists to begin the reformation work of the North Korean society.

QUEST FOR FREEDOM explores YH Kim's days as an activist and his capture, torture, and imprisonment at the hands of the South Korean CIA and the Chinese authorities. But despite these horrors, YH Kim remains undeterred and continues his activism, believing that information is the key to the survival of freedom.