Dear Leader

Jang Jin-sung, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom.
Jang Jin-sung led a charmed lift 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. Yet he could not ignore his conscience, or the disparity between his life and that of those he saw starving on the street. After breaking security rules, Jang Jin-sung, together with a close friend, was forced to flee for his life. His book Dear Leader contains astonishing new insights about North Korea which could only be revealed by someone working high up in the regime. It is also the gripping story of how a member of the inner circle of this enigmatic country became its most courageous, outspoken critic.

Introduction by David Shim, Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations and International Organization of the University of Groningen. Jang Jin-sung will be interviewed and interpreted by Remco Breuker, Professor Korean Studies at Leiden University 

Organized in collaboration with CEASG, the Centre for East Asian Studies Groningen, an inter-faculty institute launched by the Faculty of Arts and facilitated by Globalisation Studies Groningen.