As a schoolgirl in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was forced to watch executions, denounce her friends for fabricated transgressions and dig tunnels in case of a nuclear attack.

But Lee and her classmates grew up convinced they lived in the ¡°greatest nation on Earth,¡± run by a benevolent god-like leader whom they loved in the way many children love Santa Claus.

It wasn¡¯t until she left North Korea at the age of 17 that she began to discover the full horror of the government that had fed her propaganda since birth.