"The Bush Uproar" [부쉬소동], or my preferred translation "Much Ado about Bush," is a sci-fi story by blog favorite Ŏm Ho Sam that appeared in Chŏngnyŏn Munhak in March 2004. I'd had my eye out for this one for a long time, and I finally got access to a copy. It did not disappoint. Despite collecting a pretty exhaustive database, I've found no up-close depictions of President George W. Bush in any of the high-profile Imperishable Series novels. By contrast, Clinton appears in several, and Obama appears in two. Bush, it seems, was relegated to a handful of mocking poems and this one imaginat ..read more

In honor of the North Korean diplomat whose defection from the Cuban embassy was recently reported in Chosun Ilbo, as well as Cuba's diplomatic recognition of South Korea this year, I thought I'd revisit some scenes from a novel that depicted a fictional North Korean ambassador to Cuba in the late 1960s. Fidel Castro and Kim Il Sung both loved a good photo op with children The novel is Fate (2012) by perennial blog favorite Chŏng Ki Jong, previously excerpted here and here. A major character in this novel is Jang Jŏng Hwan, a decorated veteran who fought against the Japanese as ..read more

Recently, a paper of mine was included in an edited volume based on a 2022 conference at KIMEP University. My contribution, chapter 5, examined at how North Korean novels and other state literature depict nuclear technology. One of the questions I was particularly keen to investigate was cultural depictions of nuclear radiation. Western popular culture provides such a lavish cornucopia of cultural references associated with radiation, from Godzilla to Spiderman, not to mention real-life accounts of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. With such cultural exposure, we erroneously assu ..read more

Following the recent death of Henry Kissinger, NK News has a timely piece on the controversial American diplomat's reaction to the 1969 EC-121 incident, one of his first major tests in his role as Nixon's NSA. It reminded me that Kissinger makes a cameo discussing that very incident in the novel Fate, a relatively recent addition to the Imperishable History series published in 2012. This is the same novel that featured KIS' interaction with Che Guevara, which I previously covered on this blog.  The scene opens with a favorite trope: the US president being awoken early in the morning (6:5 ..read more

This past year has been a really rewarding one for us here at North Korean Literature in English. After years of toiling in obscurity, we are finally starting to see some international attention brought to this project. Src: Politico First, I have been able to reach out to several individuals – diplomats, reporters, and retired US military – who have actual named roles in North Korean historical novels. All have reacted with bemused chagrin to the translated excerpts I showed them, but after getting over the initial shock, they have really helped me to get a sense of the real historic ..read more

 "The Red Flash" (붉은 섬광) is a science fiction story by Ri Kŭm Chŏl that appeared in Chosŏn Munhak in September 2002. I was originally drawn to this story after skimming over it quickly and catching phrases like "Antarctica," "Graham Land Research Station," "unexplained phenomenon," "Ph.D. in molecular chemistry," plus a lot of talk about penguins and molecules. Having just recently rewatched John Carpenter's The Thing, I briefly fantasized about discovering a North Korean rendition of the cult classic, which sent me down a spiral of hopeful speculation. What sort of unique test would Nor ..read more

Raise Your Bayonets (총검을 들고) is a 2002 novel by Song Sang Wŏn, part of the Imperishable Leadership series of historical novels which purports to chronicle the life & deeds of Kim Jong Il. Song is also a co-author of Eternal Life (1997), reviewed earlier in this blog. This novel covers events in 1996, chiefly the construction of the massive Kumgangsan Dam and Anbyŏn Youth Power Plant, the KPA submarine incursion into South Korea, and the Arduous March Famine. The famine coverage includes some quite moving scenes of ordinary workers and soldiers making extraordinary sacrifices to save t ..read more

 (This post is dedicated to my dad, who will insist until his deathbed that the phrase OK originated with Martin Van Buren's "Old Kinderhook" campaign) It's not always just hydroelectric dams and missile launches on the pages of North Korea's premier monthly literary journal. They also have a long tradition of printing short "world culture" and "world literature" corners. I came across this one in the January 2000 edition of Chosŏn Munhak: The text explains that the popular phrase "OK" first originated with a US postal worker named Obed Korey who, when charged with validating large sta ..read more

I'm currently reading the 2012 novel Fate [운명], another gem from blog favorite Chŏng Ki Jong. The novel focuses on North Korean assistance to other communist countries in the late 1960s, and it is chock-full of entertaining scenes with well-known communist leaders: Khrushchev badmouthing Stalin to an unimpressed Mao Zedong, Hồ Chí Minh and Võ Nguyên Giáp toasting a newly arrived squad of North Korean fighter pilots, Kim Il Sung arguing with Kang Sheng and Liu Shaoqi about Nicolae Ceaușescu while an ailing Mao Zedong mostly sleeps, a hilarious who's-on-first type routine between Fidel Cast ..read more

"The Signal that Flew from Kwangmyongsong-30" (《광명성-30》호에서 날아온 전파) is a science fiction story by Shin Sŭng Gu (신승구) that appeared in Chosŏn Munhak in August 2016. I stumbled across this story as I was searching for references to radiation [방사능,방사선,방사성] in North Korean literature for a forthcoming paper; more on that soon maybe. This story has everything you typically ask for in a space drama: explosions, flying debris, solar flares, high-stakes meticulous telemetry calculations, a race against the clock, unscrupulous asteroid miners, dizzying space walks, an improbably young and beau ..read more