Barbara Demick is an American journalist. She was the Beijing bureau chief of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

''. She is the author of ''Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood'' (Andrews & McMeel, 1996). Her second book, '' Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea,'' was published by Spiegel & Grau/Random House in December 2009 and Granta Books in 2010. An animated feature film based on the book and sharing the same title was planned to be directed by Andy Glynne. The project launched in 2012 and a pilot was released in 2015. Its status is not clear.

Biography

Demick grew up in

Ridgewood, New Jersey Ridgewood is a village in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 24,958,Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, graduating with a bachelor's degree in economic history. Derrick was a correspondent for ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Penns ...

'' in Eastern Europe from 1993 to 1997. Along with photographer John Costello, she produced a series of articles that ran 1994-1996 following life on one

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajev ...

street over the course of the war in Bosnia. The series won the

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

for international reporting, the

Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism is a journalism award named after Robert F. Kennedy and awarded by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The annual awards are issued in several categories and were esta ...

for international reporting and was a finalist for the Pulitzer in the features category. She was stationed in the Middle East for the newspaper between 1997 and 2001. In 2001, Demick moved to the ''Los Angeles Times'' and became the newspaper's first bureau chief in Korea. Demick reported extensively on

human rights in North Korea The human rights record of North Korea is often considered to be the worst in the world and has been globally condemned, with the United Nations, the European Union and groups such as Human Rights Watch all critical of the country's record. Most ...

, interviewing large numbers of refugees in China and South Korea. She focused on economic and social changes inside North Korea and on the situation of North Korean women sold into marriages in China. She wrote an extensive series of articles about life inside the North Korean city of

Chongjin Chŏngjin (; ) is the capital of North Korea's North Hamgyong Province (함경북도) and the country's third largest city. It is sometimes called the ''City of Iron''. History Prehistory According to archaeological findings near the lower ...

. In 2005, Demick was a co-winner of the American Academy of Diplomacy's Arthur Ross Award for Distinguished Reporting & Analysis on Foreign Affairs. In 2006, her reports about North Korea won the

Overseas Press Club The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member, as was the war correspondent Peggy Hull. The club seeks to maintain a ...

's Joe and Laurie Dine Award for Human Rights Reporting and the

Asia Society The Asia Society is a non-profit organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States (Manhattan, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) and around the world (Hong Kong, Ma ...

's Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Asian Journalism. That same year, Demick was also named print journalist of the year by the

Los Angeles Press Club The Los Angeles Press Club is an American journalism organization founded in 1913. It honors journalists through its annual National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and SoCal Journalism Awards. The Board of Directors includes the organi ...

. In 2010, she won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction for her work, '' Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea''. The book was also a finalist for the U.S.'s most prestigious literary prize, the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The N ...

. and for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her first book, ''Logavina Street'', is being republished in an updated edition in April 2012 by Spiegel & Grau, a division of Random House. Granta is publishing in the U.K. under the title, ''Besieged: Life Under Fire on a Sarajevo Street''. In July 2020, her book ''Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town'', was published by Random House, focusing on the life of Tibetan people in

Ngaba Ngaba is a municipality ('' commune'') in the Mont Amba district of Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially ...

, Sichuan, China. Demick was a visiting professor at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

in 2006-2007 teaching Coverage of Repressive Regimes through the Ferris Fellowship at the Council of the Humanities.Princeton, Council of the Humanities, fellows
/ref> She moved to Beijing for the ''Los Angeles Times ''in 2007. She is also an occasional contributor to The New Yorker.

Awards and nominations

* 2012 Shorenstein Award for Asia coverage Stanford University * 2012 International Human Rights Book Award for German-edition of Nothing to Envy. * 2011 Finalist,

National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization ( 501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the National Book Critics C ...

award for non-fiction. * 2011 Finalist,

for non-fiction * 2010: Awarded,

BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its m ...

, '' Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea'' * 2006: Awarded, Overseas Press Club's Joe and Laurie Dine Award for Human Rights Reporting * 2006: Awarded, Asia Society's Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Asian Journalism * 2006: Awarded,

Print Journalist of the Year * 2005: Awarded, American Academy of Diplomacy's Arthur Ross Award for Distinguished Reporting & Analysis on Foreign Affairs * 1994: Awarded,

George Polk Awards The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the award ...

, ''

'' * 1994: Awarded,

, ''

'' * 1994: Nominated, Pulitzer Prize, ''

References

External links

* Spiegel & Gra

* Barbara Demick
''Nothing to Envy: Ordinary lives in North Korea''
on

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econom ...

Website for ''Nothing to Envy''

Excerpt of ''Nothing to Envy''
in ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phi ...

''. Fall 2009
Excerpt of ''Nothing to Envy''
in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

''. Nov. 2, 2009
Video: Barbara Demick discusses ''Nothing to Envy''
at the

, New York, Jan. 7, 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Demick, Barbara American women journalists Living people Experts on North Korea Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) People from Ridgewood, New Jersey Yale College alumni 21st-century American women