Memoirs

John Everard launches Only Beautiful Please at Asia House

Post image for John Everard launches Only Beautiful Please at Asia House

by Philip Gowman on 4 January, 2013

in Asia House | Books on DPRK | Event Notices | Memoirs | Talks and seminars

John Everard has already held a US launch of his entertaining book containing his reflections on life in North Korea – Only Beautiful Please. And LKL reviews the book here. We enjoyed it. He is now holding a UK launch at Asia House on 24 January. Only Beautiful, Please: A British Diplomat in North Korea [...]

Book Review: John Everard – Only Beautiful Please

by Philip Gowman 19 December 2012

Thumbnail image for Book Review: John Everard – Only Beautiful Please

Only Beautiful Please – a British Diplomat in North Korea John Everard Asia/Pacific Research Center, Div of The Institute for International Studies, 2012, 250pp It is always with a sense of duty rather than eager anticipation that I pick up a book on the DPRK, regardless of who the author is. To the extent that [...]

Read the full article →

Chinese hordes and human waves: Korean War talk at the KCC

by Philip Gowman 20 October 2011

Thumbnail image for Chinese hordes and human waves: Korean War talk at the KCC

News of an upcoming book launch event at the KCC: Chinese Hordes and Human Waves: A Personal Perspective of the Korean War 1950-1953 By Brigadier (Retd.) Brian Parritt CBE Thursday 10 November 2011 6.30pm – 9.30pm (Pre-talk Drinks at 6pm) Venue: Korean Cultural Centre UK, 1-3 Strand, Grand Buildings, London WC2N 5BW (Location) Admission is [...]

Read the full article →

Who Ate Up All The Shinga – a critical essay by Alice Bennell

by Alice Bennell 24 September 2010

Thumbnail image for Who Ate Up All The Shinga – a critical essay by Alice Bennell

Alice Bennell, UK winner of last year’s Korean Literature Translation Institute essay contest on “There a Petal Silently Falls”, contributes her entry for this year’s competition. Who Ate Up All the Shinga is an autobiographical novel chronicling the early life of the author, Park Wan-Suh. The Japanese occupation of Korea, and events leading up to [...]

Read the full article →

Brief book review: Dictée – Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

by Philip Gowman 23 March 2010

Thumbnail image for Brief book review: Dictée – Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Dictée University of California Press, 2001. Originally published 1982. Not all books are easy to read, and it would be a dull world in which all books were. The assessment of whether to continue struggling through a difficult book is tricky: maybe it will all come together in the end – [...]

Read the full article →

Nineteen Years in South Korea’s Gulag

by Philip Gowman 3 December 2009

Thumbnail image for Nineteen Years in South Korea’s Gulag

Suh Sung: Unbroken Spirits – Nineteen Years in South Korea’s Gulag Rowman & Littlefield, 2001 Original Japanese version, (Gokuchû 19 Nen, Nineteen Years in Prison) 1994 We are all familiar with stories reporting the horrors of torture and starvation in North Korean prison camps. What we can forget is that over the past decades South [...]

Read the full article →

Book review: The Reluctant Communist

by Philip Gowman 9 November 2009

Thumbnail image for Book review: The Reluctant Communist

Charles Robert Jenkins: The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea University of California Press, 2008 “Our choices are what makes us who we are. Nobody knows that better than me.” So ends the autobiography of Charles Robert Jenkins, the only American to spend most of his life in North Korea [...]

Read the full article →

Why North Korea is unlikely ever to produce a Solzhenitsyn

by Philip Gowman 23 August 2009

Thumbnail image for Why North Korea is unlikely ever to produce a Solzhenitsyn

Christian Oliver reviews “Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor” in the weekend FT # Kim Yong escaped North Korea’s gulag in 1999, and his story is told by Kim Suk-yong Kim [Yong] is shocked when he meets Soviets who can openly guffaw about Yuri Andropov. North Korea also lacks Russia’s profound [...]

Read the full article →

The Korean War: the Korean version

by Philip Gowman 12 August 2009

Thumbnail image for The Korean War: the Korean version

General Paik Sun Yup: From Pusan to Panmunjom Potomac Memories of War, 2007 (original English version pub 1992) Your typical book on the Korean War centres on Generals MacArthur and Ridgeway, on the landing at Incheon and maybe (if it’s a British account) the battle at the Imjin. It’s a war fought by Americans, with [...]

Read the full article →

Cry Korea

by Jennifer Barclay 23 April 2009

Thumbnail image for Cry Korea

Jennifer Barclay reviews a contemporary war reporter’s account of the Korean war, “Cry Korea” (Reginald Thompson)

Read the full article →

Escaping North Korea book launch

by Philip Gowman 17 March 2009

Thumbnail image for Escaping North Korea book launch

An account of the book launch of Mike Kim’s “Escaping North Korea” held at SOAS in March 2009

Read the full article →

Inheriting the gifts of grief

by Philip Gowman 10 January 2008

Thumbnail image for Inheriting the gifts of grief

Brenda Paik Sunoo: Seaweed and Shamans – Inheriting the gifts of grief Seoul Selection, April 2006 I remember logging this book in my memory sometime in early 2006, having read some advance notice of in, I think, the Seoul Selection weekly email. I didn’t read the small print too closely, and confess I didn’t read [...]

Read the full article →

De profundis

by Philip Gowman 26 November 2007

Thumbnail image for De profundis

Cullen Thomas: Brother One Cell — Coming of Age in South Korea’s Prisons Pan Books, 2007 A “powerful, harrowing and moving memoir”, proclaims the blurb on the back. “A Korean tear in the muscle round the ribs, a Korean hernia…” reads the selective quote. The cover design, a Getty image of hands grasping prison bars, [...]

Read the full article →

Guy Delisle: Pyongyang – A Journey in North Korea

by Philip Gowman 17 November 2006

Thumbnail image for Guy Delisle: Pyongyang – A Journey in North Korea

(Jonathan Cape, 2006) An account of a three-month work stint in Pyongyang at around the start of the Bush presidency, this book is neither particularly topical (it’s taken some time to be translated from the original French) nor well-titled. But it sure is original. We’ve read travel accounts of North Korea before; we’ve heard about [...]

Read the full article →

Susie Younger: Never ending flower

by Philip Gowman 4 November 2006

Thumbnail image for Susie Younger: Never ending flower

Susie Younger: Never ending flower Collins Harvill, 1967 To describe this book as a memoir of a Catholic missionary in South Korea in the early 1960s, while factually correct, undersells it. Yes, the author is a person of deep Christian faith, but her work in Korea is more that of a social worker than evangelist. [...]

Read the full article →

Donald Kirk & Choe Sang-hun (eds): Korea Witness

by Philip Gowman 30 October 2006

135 Years of War, Crisis and News in the Land of the Morning Calm (EunHaengNaMu, Seoul, 2006) A tribute to the many foreign correspondents who have worked in Seoul, this book celebrates 50 years of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club. The book starts with one of the first mentions of Korea in the Western press: [...]

Read the full article →

Andrew Holloway: A Year in Pyongyang

by Philip Gowman 10 May 2006

Thumbnail image for Andrew Holloway: A Year in Pyongyang

(Aidan FC’s website, 1988) Amid the pile of available reading material on the DPRK, is there room for an unpublished memoir, getting on for 20 years old, recording the experiences of a lowly “raiser” — someone who converts Konglish into English — in late 1980s Pyongyang? Definitely yes. Though obviously not state of the art, [...]

Read the full article →

Jahyun Kim Haboush (tr): Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong

by Philip Gowman 17 April 2006

(California UP, 1995) The style of this takes a bit of getting used to (and this is attributable to the original author, not the translator), but the content is gripping. This is the autobiographical writings of a Korean crown princess – wife of the heir to the throne – and documents at first hand the [...]

Read the full article →

Kang Chol-hwan: Aquariums of Pyongyang

by Philip Gowman 16 February 2006

(Basic Books 2001) A harrowing autobiographical account of a young boy’s experience in a North Korean concentration camp. Essential reading. Links: Buy Aquariums of Pyongyang at Amazon

Read the full article →

Links and navigation
LKL Home Page
LKL on Facebook | Twitter | Flickr | YouTube
LKL's Blogroll and other links
LKL's Category archive page
LKL's Tag archive page
LKL's Monthly archive page
Recent Micro Posts

On the anniversary of the 18 May 1980 uprising in Gwangju, here is song which became its unofficial anthem. It was written in 1982 by Kim Jong-ryul for his friends, a couple who were murdered in the uprising. The title is 임을 위한 행진곡 or “March for the beloved”, sometimes translated as “March for the [...] (18-May-13)

To mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, LSE IDEAS is organising a conference to discuss the conflict, Monday 3 June 2013, 14:00-18:00. Invited speakers will begin by exploring why the war ended the way it did, and what arrangements were made for the immediate post-war period. The discussion will then [...] (12-May-13)

Why did traffic controller Ri Kyong Sim get rewarded with the title of Hero of the Republic, together with a new flat for herself and her family? Recently she safeguarded the headquarters of the revolution in an unexpected situation by displaying her heroic self-sacrificing spirit of defending the leader resolutely, says the Rodong Sinmun on [...] (10-May-13)

David Guttenfelder is the Associated Press Chief Photographer for Asia. Although he’s now based in Tokyo, last year he spent around 100 days in Pyongyang for AP. His first time on the Korean peninsula was to witness the first of the family reunions between North and South, and his first time in Pyongyang was when [...] (06-May-13)

An interesting Associated Press article on the prevalence of Traditional Korean Medicine (called Koryo Medicine) in North Korea: “Doctors are more interested in Koryo medicine rather than Western medicine because they can get it more easily,” said Ri Hye Yong, who manages [Pyongyang's Man Nyon Pharmacy], opened by the government nearly three decades ago. “It’s [...] (06-May-13)

Each week, Saatchi Online showcases an emerging artist from around the world who is already garnering attention for their work. Taking inspiration from the Saatchi Gallery’s 25-year history of discovering new talent, ‘One To Watch’ presents some of the most exciting artists on Saatchi Online helping collectors to identify strong emerging talent. This week’s ‘One [...] (05-May-13)

It’s the Mayday Bank Holiday weekend, so as usual it’s the B-boy convention at Sadlers Wells. This year, Project Soul is representing Korea, performing on Saturday 4th. More details on the Breakin’ Convention website. (02-May-13)

Via James Pearson of NKNews.org and koreabang.com: North Korean TV is currently broadcasting a concert of Moranbang Band in army uniforms fiddling by a tank. Happy Labour Day! Too fun not to share. (01-May-13)

Go vote for Gate Flowers as MTV Iggy’s artist of the week. Says MTV Iggy: One of the bands we have our eye on is Gate Flowers, winners of both the “Rookie of the Year” and “Best Rock Song” awards in the 2011 Korean Music Awards. Their throwback sound takes the dense guitars of Nirvana-era [...] (21-Apr-13)

There’s a nice interview with Krys Lee, author of Drifting House, on the Asia House website. Drifting House was LKL’s book of the year last year, and so we’re looking forward to seeing Ms Lee at the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature next month. Authors: Krys Lee (17-Apr-13)

Read more Asides
Monthly Archives
Recent Comments