Author(s): Jang Jin-Sung

Politics

'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, 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 that he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life. Dear Leader is an unprecedented insight into the world's most secretive country. Never before has a member of the elite described how this totalitarian state is actually run, through its propaganda machine. A very rare, highly readable document, it exposes a side of North Korea which has never before been seen. It is also the heartstopping story of an escape to freedom.