The best books for understanding North Korea

Robert S. Boynton Author Of The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project
By Robert S. Boynton

Who am I?

I became fascinated by North Korea during a six-month fellowship in Tokyo in 2008. Japan was still dealing with the aftermath of the return of some of its abducted citizens in 2002. It turned out that North Korea had been abducting people—South Koreans, Japanese, and others—since the 1970s. I began interviewing some of the returnees and embarked on an eight-year journey that took me back to Japan and South Korea many times. Throughout my research and reporting, I became convinced that the truth of the abductions, much like the truth of the region, lay between Korea and Japan. I was drawn to books that tried to come to terms with the uncomfortable relationship between two cultures whose similarities are trumped by their mutual animosity.

I wrote...

Book cover of The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project

What is my book about?

During the 1970s and early 80s, dozens of Japanese civilians were kidnapped by North Korean commandos and forced to live in 'Invitation-Only Zones', high-security detention centers in the outskirts of Pyongyang. The objective was to brainwash the abductees with the regime's ideology, and train them to spy on the state's behalf. For years, the Japanese and North Korean authorities brushed off these disappearances, but in 2002 Kim Jong Il admitted to kidnapping thirteen citizens, returning five of them - the remaining eight were declared dead.

In The Invitation-Only Zone, Boynton, an investigative journalist, speaks with the abductees, nationalists and diplomats, and crab fishermen, to try and untangle both the kidnappings and the intensely complicated relations between North Korea and Japan. The result is a fierce and fascinating exploration of North Korea's mysterious machinations, and the vexed politics of Northeast Asia.

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The books I picked & why

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

By Barbara Demick,

Book cover of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Why did I love this book?

Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans, over fifteen years, as they come to the realization that their government has betrayed them. Based on interviews, the book meticulously recreates the struggles these North Koreans endured. She focuses on the story of Mi Ran and Jung San, two teenagers in love. But despite their devotion to each other, each keeps his or her plans to escape from North Korea a secret from the other. By the time they meet again in South Korea, it is too late. Every story Demick tells is emotional and humane. A masterpiece of reporting.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

By Barbara Demick,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Nothing to Envy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An eye-opening account of life inside North Korea—a closed world of increasing global importance—hailed as a “tour de force of meticulous reporting” (The New York Review of Books)
 
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST

In this landmark addition to the literature of totalitarianism, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick follows the lives of six North Korean citizens over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il (the father of Kim Jong-un), and a devastating famine that killed one-fifth of the population.
 
Demick brings to life…

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The Orphan Master's Son

By Adam Johnson,

Book cover of The Orphan Master's Son

Why did I love this book?

Adam Johnson visited North Korea once as a tourist. Based on his keen observations during those weeks, he spins a fantastic tale about Pak Jun Do, an orphaned boy who uses treachery and deception to rise to a high position in the North Korean regime. Pak is part of a crew that kidnaps a little girl from Japan, and later marries North Korea’s most famous actress. The genius of the book is that Johnson imbues the characters with believable personalities, even as he moves them through a nightmarish reality most would find completely unbelievable. The book is so good that one need not have any interest in, or knowledge of, North Korea to enjoy it.

The Orphan Master's Son

By Adam Johnson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Orphan Master's Son as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

- WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION
- NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
- NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
- 'You know you are in the hands of someone who can tell a story. Fantastic' ZADIE SMITH
The award-winning and New York Times bestselling novel: a dark and witty story of the rise of a young orphan in the surreal and tyrannical regime of North Korea .

Young Pak Jun Do is convinced he is special. He knows he must be the unique son of the master of the orphanage, and definitely not some kid dumped by his parents. Surely it…

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Pyongyang

By Guy Delisle, Helge Dascher (translator),

Book cover of Pyongyang

Why did I love this book?

French cartoonist Guy Delisle was invited to Pyongyang to work for a French film animation company. Armed with a copy of George Orwell’s 1984, Delisle explores North Korea, with his ever present minder, and conveys his thoughts in the form of a graphic novel. While one may have read descriptions of the bleakness of North Korea, one has (literally) never seen them like this. By using the form of a graphic novel, Delisle takes us inside the cartoonish reality of North Korea as only a cartoon can.

Pyongyang

By Guy Delisle, Helge Dascher (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Pyongyang as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Famously referred to as an "Axis-of-Evil" country, North Korea remains one of the most secretive and mysterious nations in the world today. A series of manmade and natural catastrophes have also left it one of the poorest. When the fortress-like country recently opened the door a crack to foreign investment, cartoonist Guy Delisle found himself in its capital of Pyongyang on a work visa for a French film animation company, becoming one of the few Westerners to witness current conditions in the surreal showcase city. Armed with a smuggled radio and a copy of 1984, Delisle could only explore Pyongyang…

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The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters

By B.R. Myers,

Book cover of The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters

Why did I love this book?

North Korea is too often dismissed because it is filled with people who seem to believe the strangest, most outlandish things about themselves, their country, and their leaders. Myers analyzes North Korean history and propaganda to argue that many of those strange ideas are produced for foreign consumption, to put North Korea’s enemies off the scent. Rather, Myers shows that the country’s identity is in part a reaction to its experience with Japanese imperialism, and conceives of the North Korean race as the purist people on earth. Rather than the combination of Stalinist politics and Confucian ethics, Myers finds a right wing, militaristic nationalist country that has contempt for the outside world.

The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters

By B.R. Myers,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Cleanest Race as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Understanding North Korea through its propagandaA newly revised and updated edition that includes a consideration of Kim Jung Il's successor, Kim Jong-On What do the North Koreans really believe? How do they see themselves and the world around them? Here B.R. Myers, a North Korea analyst and a contributing editor of The Atlantic, presents the first full-length study of the North Korean worldview. Drawing on extensive research into the regime’s domestic propaganda, including films, romance novels and other artifacts of the personality cult, Myers analyzes each of the country’s official myths in turn€”from the notion of Koreans’ unique moral purity,…

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Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History

By Bruce Cumings,

Book cover of Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History

Why did I love this book?

University of Chicago professor Bruce Cumings is the preeminent expert on modern Korean history. He is also a gifted writer, and this book is the best one-volume history of Korea one can find. Cumings explains both the extraordinary progress Korea has made in 150 years, and the terrible damage that 35 years of Japanese colonialism did to the country. He demonstrates the ways that North and South Korea mirror each other, and is fairer to the North than most Western historians.

Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History

By Bruce Cumings,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Korea's Place in the Sun as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Korea has endured a "fractured, shattered twentieth century," and this updated edition brings Bruce Cumings's leading history of the modern era into the present. The small country, overshadowed in the imperial era, crammed against great powers during the Cold War, and divided and decimated by the Korean War, has recently seen the first real hints of reunification. But positive movements forward are tempered by frustrating steps backward. In the late 1990s South Korea survived its most severe economic crisis since the Korean War, forcing a successful restructuring of its political economy. Suffering through floods, droughts, and a famine that cost…

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