The journalist and author Suki Kim discusses her bestselling memoir, Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite (Crown, 2014), with Joseph Planta.

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite by Suki Kim (Crown, 2014). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Without You, There Is No Us

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

An engaging book is the latest from the journalist and author Suki Kim. Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite, is a fine memoir about the six months Ms. Kim spent teaching at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, a school built and run by Christian missionaries. This book provides a remarkable insight into what life is like for this rarefied segment of North Korean society, yet it’s a look into a country that we rarely get a view of. It’s an anachronism in a largely globalised world of information, and we see this quite starkly when she talks to the students and they share their thoughts on their society and their perception of the wider world. Suki Kim joins me now. She was in town earlier this week as part of the TED conference. Her novel The Interpreter was acclaimed and award-winning. She has been travelling to North Korea as a journalist since 2002, and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, and the New York Review of Books. She is the recipient of Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Open Society fellowships. She was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, and lives in New York City. The website for more is at www.sukikim.com. The book is published by Crown. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Suki Kim; Ms. Kim, good morning.

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