THE STORY THEY COULDNT 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 exposé 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.
