Masaji Ishikawa

Masaji Ishikawa or Do Changsun is a North Korean defector and author on Zainichi heritage. Ishikawa was thirteen years old when he moved from Japan to North Korea in 1960. His father was Zainichi Korean and his mother was Japanese. Ishikawa later defected from North Korea in 1996 via the Yalu river, leaving behind three children and a spouse.^[1][2] The Japanese government assisted him in leaving China.^[3] In 2003, he was working as a security guard.^[1]

Masaji Ishikawa
石川昌司
Born	Do Chang-sun 1947 (age 77–78) Kawasaki
Known for	Defection from North Korea
Writing career
Pen name	Shunsuke Miyazaki (宮崎 俊輔)
Children	3
Korean name
Hangul	도창순
Hanja	都昌巡
Revised Romanization	Do Changsun
McCune–Reischauer	To Ch'angsun

Memoir

In 2000, Ishikawa published his memoirs in Japan under the title 北朝鮮大脱出地獄からの生還 and the nom de plume Shunsuke Miyazaki (宮崎 俊輔).^[4][5] They were translated into English in 2017 under the title A River in Darkness.^[6] Ishikawa's memoirs are published in Korean under his Korean name^{[nb 1]} and the title 역사의 증언자.^[7] The book was translated into Persian in 2020.^[8] The part of the book focused on the river crossing was published in Literary Hub.^[9]

Notes

1. In the English language version of A River in Darkness this name is romanised as "Do Chan-sun" which does not match the hangul used by the Korean publisher; presumably the English translation is romanised from the Japanese ド・チャンスン instead