Welcome to episode five of the Olasky interview.

I'm Jill Nelson.

Thanks for joining us.

Today you'll hear Marvin Olasky's 2012 interview with author and journalist Melanie Kirkpatrick.

She's a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a former Wall Street Journal editor,

and the author of Escape from North Korea,

the untold story of Asia's Underground Railroad. And we have Marvin here to give us a little

more background. Marvin, hi. Hi, Jill. Well, Escape from North Korea was World's Book of the Year in 2013,

and I looked back in our archives, and you described Kirkpatrick's book as a, quote,

great entrepreneurial reporting accomplishment. Tall words there. Tell us why.

Well, a lot of people have written about North Korea from the vantage point of, say,

30,000 feet describing the darkness in the country, both spiritual

darkness and literally darkness. Only in Pyongyang can you see some lights at night, because

it is a society that's just suffering in so many ways. So to actually do it at street level

with human interest and specific to tail,

it's a high degree of difficulty, like an Olympic dive with three and a half twists in the tuck

position. Melanie interviewed more than 200 people. A lot of them, not easy to find, because

often they seek anonymity, but she kept at it, dug it out,

and tell their stories.

As you mentioned, she collected the stories of those who escaped North Korea and the people

who helped them escape and interviewed more than 200 people.

That's a lot of material.

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