North Korea undercover
Subtitle: inside the world's most secret state
By: John Sweeney
Edition: First Pegasus Books hardcover edition.
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 306
ISBN-13: 9781605988023
Subjects: Politics and government; Travel; Description and travel; History
Description: "North Korea is like no other tyranny on earth. Its citizens are told their home is the greatest nation in the world, and big brother is always watching: it is Orwell's 1984 made reality. Award-winning BBC journalist John Sweeney is one of the few foreign journalists to have witnessed the devastating reality of life in the controversial and isolated nation of North Korea, having entered the country undercover, posing as a university professor with a group of students from the London School of Economics. Huge factories with no staff or electricity, hospitals with no patients, uniformed child soldiers, and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ--the Demilitarized Zone, where North Korea ends and South Korea begins--are all framed by a relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line, and the gulag awaits. State spies are everywhere, ready to punish disloyalty at the slightest sign of discontent. Drawing on his own experiences and his extensive interviews with defectors and other key witnesses, Sweeney's North Korea Undercover pulls back the curtain, providing a rare insight into life there today while examining the country's troubled history and addressing important questions about its uncertain future."--Book jacket.
Notes: Originally published by Bantam Press, 2013.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: In the land of the plastic toad; title: Zombie gods seep goo; title: God the waxwork father; title: 'No photos, no photos'; title: Jimmy the gold-smuggler; title: Pyongyang Zoo; title: The scariest place on earth; title: Facing the final curtain; title: Cruel Christs of pus; title: Pissing on marble; title: 'Would the dear leader not be offended by such a gift?'; title: The man who went to North Korea and came back mad; title: The washing of brains; title: God the bad Elvis son; title: Fifty shades of green; title: Empty bellies; title: The American who went to North Korea and stayed; title: The hospital that has patients, but only in the morning; title: The gulag circus; title: God the fat boy Kim.