''The Tears of My Soul'' () is the memoir of

Kim Hyon-hui Kim Hyon-hui ( ko, 김현희, born 27 January 1962), also known as Ok Hwa, is a North Korean former agent, responsible for the Korean Air Flight 858 bombing in 1987, which killed 115 people. She was arrested in Bahrain following the bombing a ...

, a former

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

n agent known for planting the bomb on board

Korean Air Flight 858 Korean Air Flight 858 was a scheduled international passenger flight between Baghdad, Iraq, and Seoul, South Korea. On 29 November 1987, the aircraft flying that route exploded in mid-air upon the detonation of a bomb planted inside an overhead ...

. This book recounts one of North Korean state-sponsored acts of terror. Kim tells the story of how she was trained as a spy and assigned a mission given by Kim Jong-il to blow up a

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

n airliner. The book details her early training and life as a party member in

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

, and across Europe; her terrorist act; and her consequent trial, reprieve, and integration into South Korean society. The book has been translated into a number of languages, including

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

. On page 3 of the book Kim writes:

This book is dedicated to the families of the victims of Flight 858. All proceeds deriving from the book will be donated to them. ''The Tears of My Soul''
Kim Hyon Hui, William Morrow and Co., 1993, page 3

Rémi Kauffer, in ''

The Black Book of Communism ''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression'' is a 1997 book by Stéphane Courtois, Andrzej Paczkowski, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Margolin, and several other European academics documenting a history of political repression by co ...

'', has some reservations about the truthfulness of ''The Tears of My Soul'', writing in 1997: "It is still too soon to determine how much of the book is fabrication".

References

Korean non-fiction books 1993 non-fiction books Memoirs Books about North Korea {{Memoir-stub Korean autobiographies