BLACK GIRL FROM PYONGYANG, in search of my identity

289pp., illus., paperback, Reprint, Richmond, (2023) 2024

Memoir of Monica Macias, the daughter of Francisco Macias, the first president of independent Equatorial Guinea. In 1978, aged seven, she was sent to North Korea to be educated under the guardianship of her father's ally, Kim II Sung. After her father was executed in a coup in 1979 she was forced to make her life in Pyongyang. She left the country in 1994 and lived in several countries around the world. She now resides in south London.

"With intimate knowledge through some of the world’s least-known places, Monica Macias leads us on an extraordinary journey. Her perspective as an African, Asian and European woman is absolutely singular as she searches for home, for her history and for her own identity. Her story is told with clear-eyed honesty and self-reflection, as she seeks to better understand herself, the circumstances of her birth and upbringing, and the world she travels around so bravely. You have never read a book like Black Girl From Pyongyang, and you won’t soon forget it" Marcia de Sanctis, author of A Hard Place to Leave

"A fascinating account of a woman’s quest for autonomy, and her bravery and determination to find the truth. It’s an investigative story to understand her true father, a powerful but controversial figure, the real man behind his many personas. A woman who was raised between countries, in search of her true home." Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father