London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

LKL book database logo

Made in North Korea: Graphics from Everyday Life in the DPRK

Author:
Publisher: , 2017
Link to online store *

From the publisher’s website:

North Korea uncensored and unfiltered – ordinary life in the world’s most secretive nation, captured in never-before-seen ephemera.

Made in North Korea uncovers the fascinating and surprisingly beautiful graphic culture of North Korea – from packaging to hotel brochures, luggage tags to tickets for the world-famous mass games. From his base in Beijing, Bonner has been running tours into North Korea for over twenty years, and along the way collecting graphic ephemera. He has amassed thousands of items that, as a collection, provide an extraordinary and rare insight into North Korea’s state-controlled graphic output, and the lives of ordinary North Koreans.

Nick Bonner studied landscape architecture in the UK. During a study trip to China in 1993 he visited North Korea and subsequently set up Koryo Tours, based in Beijing, specializing in tourism to the DPRK. Since 2001, Bonner has produced three documentaries on North Korea and a feature film.

LKL says:

Paul French, author of North Korea: State of Paranoia, cheekily commented: “Nobody has ever turned the accumulated rubbish under their bed into a better book.” It’s nice to have on the shelf, and a good memento of the colourful exhibition that was held at The House of Illustration in London in 2018

LKL rating: score-2score-2score-2score-2score-0. Read our review of this book here.

Entry on Goodreads.com here.

* Where the book is available from a number of sources, they are prioritised as follows: (1) Amazon UK site, or Bookshop.org for the more recent uploads (2) Amazon US site (3) Other sites in US or Europe, including second-hand outlets (4) LTI Korea, where the title is advertised as available from there (5) Onlines stores in Korea. Links to Bookshop.org and Amazon UK site contain an affiliate code which, should you make a purchase, gives a small commission to LKL at no additional cost to you.