Life on the Edge of the DMZ

The author’s now celebrated quest, through narrative and photography, to capture today’s built and natural environment and way of life along the Min Tong Line (Demilitarized Zone - DMZ) separating the two Koreas, is both a stunning literary and photographic achievement. Supported by 150 colour photographs, the book by one of Korea’s renowned photographers who is also a well-known peace activist, takes the reader from Chulwon in the east to Kosung in the west, interweaving profoundly felt philosophical reflections on a wide variety of political, social and other issues, with detailed observations about the places he visits, including their myths and legends. The sense of yearning for the reunification of his divided country pervades the text. Life on the Edge of the DMZ provides the Western reader with a rare and dynamic connection to an often forgotten aspect of life, albeit ’behind the scenes’, in contemporary Korea, and will have wide relevance at many levels in the study of modern Korea.

Lee Si-woo is a well known photojournalist and peace campaigner in South Korea. He has published a number of books and collections of his photographs which focus on the anti-personnel mines remaining in the de-militarized zone separating South and North Korea (known in Korea as the Civilian Passage Restriction Line), and on the continued presence of the US-led command in South Korea. In 2007, he was imprisoned for some months for (allegedly) contravening the National Security Law, during which time he went on hunger strike for forty days. He was subsequently released pending trial. This is his first book to be published in English. It addresses many of the issues central to his work and his concerns for the future of the Korean people.