Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee – A Look Inside North Korea

Author(s): Jang Jin-sung

Location(s): North Korea

Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs

Era(s): early 2000s

THE STORY THEY COULDN’T HACK: In this rare insider s view into contemporary North Korea, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom.
The General will now enter the room.
Everyone turns to stone. Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jong-il s face will soon appear
As North Korea s State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongyang seemed safe and secure. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life.
Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing expose told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung s escape to South Korea, Dear Leader is a rare and unprecedented insight into the world s most secretive and repressive regime.”

Review this Book