Particularize Books Toward Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea
| Original Title: | Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea |
| ISBN: | 147676655X (ISBN13: 9781476766553) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Memoir & Autobiography (2014) |
Jang Jin-sung
Hardcover | Pages: 339 pages Rating: 4.31 | 6269 Users | 717 Reviews
Narrative During Books Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea
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.
Present Appertaining To Books Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea
| Title | : | Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea |
| Author | : | Jang Jin-sung |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 339 pages |
| Published | : | May 13th 2014 by 37 Ink |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. History. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography. Politics |
Rating Appertaining To Books Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea
Ratings: 4.31 From 6269 Users | 717 ReviewsWrite-Up Appertaining To Books Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea
I really wanted to like this book a lot. Anyone who gets out of North Korea is entitled to all the indulgence I can afford. But this one is just too fairy tale-like. Some of Jang's memories are filled with descriptions like, "He looked at me with a smile, and the two of us scampered off like playful children."One too many such descriptions and it all began to sound fake. One also has to give strong consideration to the author's callousness in not understanding the dangerous predicament those whoI am not sure what to make of this book. It reads like an over the top adventure yarn and I have no doubt that escaping North Korea is a harrowing ordeal or that the author experienced something very much like what is described. Nor do I doubt that the author really was a member of Kim Jong-il's inner circle who worked for the UFD as a poet and author. But outside those broad outlines, I am not sure how much of the book to believe.For starters, Jang Jin-sung is not the author's real name - it is
Although a memoir, this book reads like a fiction novel. The oppression of North Koreans by the tyrant regime doesn't seem to fit in this century. The book is an eye opener for the outsiders on the pitiful state of North Koreans. This rare insight on the functioning of DPRK and the government's absolute grip on its people is shocking. The country works like a prison, with severed connections from outside world, where people can't leave or talk to outsiders with no access to what is going around
This is the first and only defector story I've read so far, so I can't really say it's the best, nor can I critique on anything regarding the legitimacy if it's content, since if anyone would know anything about the regime, it would be Jang and those ruling it. However, I can say that the reason why I enjoyed the book was not solely because of my interest in the country. While Jang did provide really interesting information as well as understandable explanations, it was the way he intertwined
The next day after I finished reading this book, Kim Jong Nam was assassinated in Malaysia. An event which tally with the account inside the book, on how the worker party purge its own people for their struggle for power.The book was written very much like a novel. One of my friend drop off halfway reading it, saying that it must not be true. I can't find a proof that the account was fake, so as for me it should be true unless proven otherwise.Jang story wake something inside me, that is above
Actual rating: 3.5 stars.I've read several nonfiction books purporting to explain life inside North Korea, but only one other by an actual defector. That book was Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. It was the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, as told to American journalist Blaine Harden, who actually wrote the book. My review of Escape from Camp 14 included these comments:An interesting but curiously flat and skimpy retelling of a North Korean
"Freedom is freely given to anyone born in a free land, but others have to risk their lives for it."North Korea is a country I am very much intrigued with. Another book I've read on North Korea is Escape From Camp 14 in which Shin Donghyuk tells what happens in the labor camps specifically. Dear Leader, in contrast, focuses on North Korea in general: the cultification of the leaders in North Korea, particularly their Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, since the author, Jang Jin-sung, lived (and escaped)
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