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    Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee--A Look Inside North Korea
    Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee--A Look Inside North Korea
    Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee--A Look Inside North Korea
    Audiobook11 hours

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

    Written by Jang Jin-sung

    Narrated by Daniel York

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    THE STORY THEY COULDN'T HACK: In this international bestseller, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom.

    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 exposé told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung’s escape to South Korea, Dear Leader is an “impossibly dramatic story…one of the best depictions yet of North Korea’s nightmare” (Publishers Weekly).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJul 1, 2014
    ISBN9781442375802
    Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee--A Look Inside North Korea
    Author

    Jang Jin-sung

    Jang Jin-sung is a former poet laureate for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Since leaving the country he has become a bestselling author and widely solicited commentator on North Korea. He has been awarded the Rex Warner Literary Prize and read his poetry at London’s Cultural Olympiad in 2012. He now lives in South Korea and is editor in chief of New Focus International, an authoritative website reporting on North Korea.

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    Reviews for Dear Leader

    4.5/5

    105 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      It’s interesting. He had a pretty privileged life. I would had rather listened to a story with someone that had overcame more suffering. Maybe hearing about the slave camps and such.
    • 5/5
      Very insightful story and a look into both Korean life.
    • 5/5
      Very insightful and intriguing audiobook. Kept my interest from beginning to end.
    • 5/5
      Must read to understand how good this book is. Like a non stop novel. Time flew by listening to this true story.
    • 5/5
      As a former USAF psyop imstructor i was fascinated by the authors detailed account of how things are done in Pyongyang.

    • 5/5
      Inspiring and enlightening
      book by a talented and courageous author
    • 5/5
      Malala Yousafzai once wrote, “There is no greater weapon than knowledge and no greater source of knowledge than the written word.” I really couldn't think of any better words to describe Jang Jin-Sung's incredible story, who like Malala, had his human rights stripped from him. "Dear Leader" is a clear example of the written word being turned into a powerful weapon against the DPRK. This book has truly opened my eyes to the severe injustices that the people in North Korea face on a daily basis and the corruption that is rooted at its core.

      After reading more and more about the stories of refugees, I feel like a little hobbit in a beautiful green patch of land, sitting in my comfortable hobbit hole, enjoying creature comforts, taking almost everything for granted and not realising just how very lucky I am.

      I really think you should read Jang Jin-Sung's book, his story of survival and fight for freedom is just incredible. Put down the latest best seller and read something that's really going to stay with you. Everyone needs to hear his story.
    • 5/5
      "If the regime has murder, deception and nuclear bombs in its arsenal, the weapon I wield is truth"By sally tarbox on 1 November 2017I had read a few memoirs by N Korean escapees, and while the facts about the awful everyday life of its citizens are always fascinating, this goes a step further, in that the author was from the highest echelons. He had access to privy information on the leaders and his revelations on this apparently crazy regime make for informative and unputdownable reading.Jang was a pianist, but chose to work in literature. His elegies to the 'Dear Leader' fast-tracked him to a top job in propaganda, where his task was to imbibe the South Korean mindset (from media that was banned to the rest of the population) and write fake poems, purportedly by authors from that country who admired Kim Jong-Il ! The amount of Orwellian manoeuvres that go on in Pyong Yang is quite staggering; as a Chinese acquaintance observes, ""I thought Kim Jong-Il was just a stupid man who didn't know how to feed his own people. I had no idea that N Korea put this much thought into policy nmaking."When it's discovered that Jang has 'borrowed' a forbidden book from work, he knows he's doomed. He and a friend make a break for freedom into China...The gripping narrative as they cope with cold, hunger, poverty, hostile locals, Chinese military... and N Korean guards sent over to look for them, is intercut with accounts about N Korea.I was particularly fascinated by the power struggle between Kim Jong-Il and his father; Jang's research as he prepared a history of the men revealed that the son wrested all power from his father via his Organisation and Guidance Department. While he paid lip service to his father as 'Supreme Leader', the son ensured his father was a mere figurehead.And the constant foolish acts of aggression perpetrated by the country are an attempt to blackmail surrounding nations into keeping on with the Aid (referred to within N Korea - which promotes an ethos of 'self-reliance'- as 'spoils of war'!)Other reviewers comment on the author's perceived callousness in leaving his parents behind to face Kim's wrath. That certainly occurred to me as I read it; and his unwise act of taking a book. But even if you criticize his decisions, I don't think that detracts from this powerful narrative. In a country where a person can face extreme punishment for little - or nothing- living a life of toeing the line is no guarantee of a secure old age.Absolutely fascinating book - this is the one to read to get a handle on N Korea! Excellent translation too.
    • 5/5
      Edge of the seat drama, political intrigue and intricacies of a dark place explained. I didn't expect to love this, but I did. North Korea is a continuing mystery.
    • 3/5
      A terrible story. Hard to believe it happened this century!
    • 4/5
      A fascinating, insightful insider's look into North Korea by one of its elite who defected.
    • 5/5
      A well-written and moving narrative of the secretive machinations and mind set of North Korea’s former leader Kim Jong-il who attempted to rule through music and literature but in reality used thought control, starvation and absolute loyalty no matter the consequences. Jan Jin-Sung, the narrator, was the former poet laureate for “Dear Leader”. He provides an engaging portrait of his development as a writer and an account of his rise to fame as a young man. His daring suspenseful escape will keep your attention to the very end. The translation by Shirley Lee is excellent. This is a book you don’t want to miss.
    • 5/5
      This is a fascinating, first-person look into North Korea, written by a on-time insider who finally saw the reality of what was going on and acted. From his early days as a student t his days as an “insider” to his days as a defector who manages to end up I a better place, Jang Jin-Sun provides one of the better insights about what really goes on in this hermit country. Having read other books on North Korea as well as magazine and newspaper articles, I was somewhat prepared for what the author told the reader about the country and its inner workings. I found the picture riveting and, at the same time, revolting. This man knows North Korea, for he has seen the good side and the bad. Being in such an esteemed position, he had a great opportunity to really see just how the Dear Leader operates on a day-to-day basis. I was enthralled by the great lengths he went through to escape the country and grateful when he finally succeeded. Yes, the names were confusing as was the fact that the author jumped around in different time frames to tell the story, but I don’t see how he could have done otherwise and still produced such a great book. Most people do not know very much about the country or its leader or its people and their culture and daily lives. This book can provide some insight and background for anyone who chooses to read it. This book is for the astute reader, who searches for insight and/or background about countries, people, cultures, and politics in today’s world. I think anyone who takes time to read it will be as fascinated as I was. In many ways it was frightening to read just how people live when pushed to extremes as these people are. I encourage anyone who wants to learn more about what we see and hear daily to take the time to read this book. I am sure you will find it enlightening and interesting. I received this from NetGalley to read and review, and I am grateful I had this opportunity.
    • 4/5
      There are over 25,000 North Koreans who have escaped to South Korea and quite a few memoirs published. This one is rare because the author came from the upper elite of society. Jang Jin-sung (a pseudonym to protect his family) was a "court poet" who wrote a North Korean best-seller (propaganda) and had even personally met Dear Leader on his secret island. He also worked for the department that re-writes Korean history to be favorable to the Kim dynasty, and he had full access to South Korean media. Thus he came to discover the corruption and lies North Korea is founded on and he eventually had to flee the country after the secret police caught on to his anti-revolutionary thinking. The memoir is well done on a number of levels. For one it reveals new information about North Korea, significantly that Kim Jong Il did not inherit power from his father Kim Il-sung (who died in 1994) rather he violently usurped it decades earlier. Kim Il-sung was a God-figure head that Kim Jong Il created to serve the purpose of ruling the state. The main power apparatus is not the military but the OGD which runs the personal guard of Dear Leader, the propaganda and prison camps. Once Kim Jong Il took power of the OGD he controlled the country, even while he elevated his living father to the cult of a God. This is also a gripping true-life adventure story as Jin-sung escapes through China on the run from police. Although he was on the run for only 35 days it feels like a lifetime. It reminds me of American slave narratives that were prevalent in the 1840s and 50s, the most famous being Uncle Tom's Cabin. All in all this is required reading for any North Korean watcher as it's one of the best written memoirs and reveals new information and perspectives on North Korean society and history.