Reviews - Barbara Demick

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove

""The reader desperately wants to rush forward, as if it were a thriller. There were times when I almost forgot to breathe... the very best kind of nonfiction." " - observer.co.uk [2025-09-03]

""Demick has written with impeccable empathy for everyone involved, Chinese and western.... She captures the essence of rural Chinese society in a way few western observers have done."" - thetimes.com [2025-09-03]

Excellent...entrancing and disturbing... [Barbara Demick] is one of our finest chroniclers of East Asia. She hammers together strong, solid sentence after strong, solid sentence — until the grandeur of the architecture comes into focus. Demick’s characters are richly drawn, and her stories, often reported over a span of years, deliver a rare emotional wallop.

" - nytimes.com [2025-09-03]

Eat The Buddha

"Few writers have done more to illuminate isolated parts of the world than Barbara Demick." - economist.com [2021-07-21]

""An awe-inspiring new book by Barbara Demick... Everything about this book is enthralling; from the seamless way Demick recounts history through flashes of memories, to her descriptions of the Tibetan plateaus." Washington Post" - washingtonpost.com [2021-05-19]

"More than any other non-Chinese journalist of this generation, Demick has managed to overcome Beijing’s restrictions and penetrate the Tibetan world, to linger in it and to bring its people vividly to life on the page -- Howard French. " - foreignaffairs.com [2021-05-15]

"Eat the Buddha confirms Demick as a master of narrative non-fiction." - the-tls.co.uk [2020-11-13]

"Outstanding.... Every page packed with insight and gripping detail." - ft.com [2020-09-18]

"A brilliantly reported and eye-opening work of narrative nonfiction-- Anne Fadiman " - nytimes.com [2020-08-02]

"Remarkable... Gripping... Seldom is the veil lifted from Tibet, which makes Ms. Demick's…. chronicles all the more worth reading" - economist.com [2020-07-25]

"“The method is programmatic openness, deep listening, a willingness to be waylaid; the effect, a prismatic picture of history as experienced and understood by individuals in their full amplitude and idiosyncrasy.”" - nytimes.com [2020-07-15]

"In this heartbreaking and doggedly reported account, journalist Demick (Nothing to Envy) views the tragic history of Tibet under Chinese rule through the stories of people with roots in Ngaba County, the site of the Mei kingdom in the remote reaches of Sichuan province." - publishersweekly.com [2020-07-09]

"Journalist Demick does for Tibet what she did for Sarajevo in Logavina Street (1996) and North Korea in Nothing to Envy (2010): reveal the lives of individuals struggling against state tyranny and violence." - booklistonline.com [2020-07-07]

Nothing To Envy

"A tour de force of meticulous reporting." - nybooks.com [2010-07-15]

"The narrow boundaries of our knowledge have expanded radically with the publication of Los Angeles Times correspondent Barbara Demick’s Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea… Elegantly structured and written, Nothing To Envy is a groundbreaking work of literary nonfiction." - slate.com [2010-02-10]

"Excellent… lovely work of narrative nonfiction….a book that offers extensive evidence of the author’s deep knowledge of this country while keeping its sights firmly on individual stories and human details." - nytimes.com [2010-01-27]

"There’s a simple way to determine how well a journalist has reported a story, internalized the details, seized control of the narrative and produced good work. When you read the result, you forget the journalist is there. Barbara Demick, the Los Angeles Times’ Beijing bureau chief, has aced that test in “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea,” a clear-eyed and deeply reported look at one of the world’s most dismal places." - cleveland.com [2009-12-29]

"The ring of authority as well as the suspense of a novel." - washingtontimes.com [2009-11-04]