Book Description

The idea for this book was born while I was still in North Korea. From the very first days that I arrived, I felt that there was a truth there that needed to be told. It isn't easy to unlock the secrets of North Korea; from the moment you arrive in the country you realise that everything you know or have heard about it is pretty much worthless. I was aware of only part of the truth, and that a part which had reached me already distorted by the lens of foreign journalism and international diplomacy. If we assume that the North Koreans have no understanding of us Westerners, I can safely say that we Westerners are in the dark about the North Koreans.This book was written so that I could say what I saw and what I learnt during these two years I lived the life of an expat in Pyongyang. I wanted to give the picture of the country that I had experienced, without exaggerations and in as balanced a way as possible. What I had seen there was definitely not "staged". Two years is a long time for all that you see to be staged. I had enjoyed freedom of movement, I was able to visit rural areas, I had seen poverty and undernourished children and destroyed infrastructure. I had seen people gathering snow for drinking water, adolescents searching for food in the garbage in Pyongyang and dirty children in the rain in the provinces. Nobody had hidden these things from me. But I had seen other things as well. In those two years, I saw every day the small victories that improved life. The number of markets growing, people shopping, and children dressed in ever prettier and warmer clothes. Colour had come to North Korea. The electricity cuts had become rarer, people had more free time and, I might dare to say, more freedom, compared to what we imagine and what the case had been ten years before. Having had the rare privilege to talk to lots of North Koreans, to drink and eat with them, I had seen their small and large concerns and I discovered they weren't so different from our own.I would like to believe that when someone finishes reading this book, he or she will know a little more about the country than they did before. And the next time North Korea is in the media, the reader will be in a better position to weigh the information.