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Dear Leader
- Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look inside North Korea
- Narrated by: Daniel York
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
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Publisher's summary
In this rare insider's view into contemporary North Korea, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom.
"The General will now enter the room."
Everyone turns to stone. Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jong-il’s face will soon appear.
As North Korea's State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. 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. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life.
Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing exposé told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung's escape to South Korea, Dear Leader is a rare and unprecedented insight into the world’s most secretive and repressive regime.
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Story
As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told, 'the best on the planet'?
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Did not like narrator
- By Linda H. Andreae on 10-09-19
By: Hyeonseo Lee, and others
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A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
- By: Sebastien Falletti, Eunsun Kim
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child, Eunsun loved her country...despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the countrywide famine escalated. By the time she was 11 years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun too was in danger of starving. Finally her mother decided to escape North Korea with Eunsun and her sister.
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Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
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Escape from Camp 14
- One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
- By: Blaine Harden
- Narrated by: Blaine Harden
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did. In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the world's most repressive totalitarian state.
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The awful narrative
- By Amazon Customer on 04-28-24
By: Blaine Harden
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In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
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Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
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The Sister
- North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, the Most Dangerous Woman in the World
- By: Sung-Yoon Lee
- Narrated by: Dexter Galang
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The first woman ever to issue the threat of a nuclear weapons strike is not even officially a head of state. Kim Yo Jong is the sister of North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and, as their murderous regime’s chief propagandist, internal administrator, and foreign policymaker, she is the most powerful woman in North Korean history. Cruel but charming, she threatens and insults foreign leaders with sardonic wit, issuing proclamations and denunciations in her own name, a first for any woman in the Korean royal family.
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Too many details distracting from the story
- By Lilia on 11-24-23
By: Sung-Yoon Lee
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See You Again in Pyongyang
- By: Travis Jeppesen
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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From terrifying missile tests, its unmissable Olympic cheering squad, and the war of words between President Trump and Kim Jong Un - not to mention stranger-than-fiction stories of purges and assassinations - news from North Korea has dominated global headlines. But what is life there actually like? In See You Again in Pyongyang, Travis Jeppesen, the first American to complete a university program in North Korea, culls from his experiences living, traveling, and studying in the country to create a multifaceted portrait of the country and its idiosyncratic capital city.
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Save me from the hippie millennials with a PhD
- By Verified purchaser on 06-21-18
By: Travis Jeppesen
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The Real North Korea
- Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia
- By: Andrei Lankov
- Narrated by: Steven Roy Grimsley
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state.
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Broad and nuanced account of North Korea
- By Neuron on 07-29-15
By: Andrei Lankov
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Without You, There Is No Us
- My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite
- By: Suki Kim
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields - except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST).
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The King and I meets Mary Poppins
- By Michael on 02-22-15
By: Suki Kim
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The Hard Road Out
- One Woman’s Escape from North Korea
- By: Jihyun Park, Seh-Lynn Chai, Sarah Baldwin - translator
- Narrated by: Rosa Escoda
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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North Korea is an open-air prison from which there is no escape. Only a handful of men and women have succeeded. Jihyun Park is one of these rare survivors. Twice she left the land of the ‘socialist miracle’ to flee famine and dictatorship. By the age of 29, she had already witnessed a lifetime of suffering. Family members had died of starvation; her brother was beaten nearly to death by soldiers. Even smiling and laughing was discouraged.
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Harrowing
- By Elijah Roberts on 11-26-23
By: Jihyun Park, and others
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Every Falling Star
- The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea
- By: Sungju Lee, Susan McClelland
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Every Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who is forced at age 12 to live on the streets and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly recreates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, his "brothers".
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Riveting, sad, and inspirational
- By Janis Creason on 09-17-16
By: Sungju Lee, and others
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Dear Reader
- The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il
- By: Michael Malice
- Narrated by: Marcus Freeman
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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No country is as misunderstood as North Korea, and no modern tyrant has remained more mysterious than the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. Now, celebrity ghostwriter Michael Malice pulls back the curtain to expose the life story of the "Incarnation of Love and Morality". Taken directly from books spirited out of Pyongyang, Dear Reader is a carefully reconstructed first-person account of the man behind the mythology.
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Great book
- By Rodney on 05-24-17
By: Michael Malice
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The Reluctant Communist
- My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea
- By: Charles Robert Jenkins, Jim Fredrick
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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In January of 1965, 24-year-old US Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins abandoned his post in South Korea, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to communist North Korean soldiers standing sentry along the world's most heavily militarized border. He believed his action would get him back to the States and a short jail sentence. Instead he found himself in another sort of prison, where for 40 years he suffered under one of the most brutal and repressive regimes the world has known. This fast-paced, harrowing tale, told plainly and simply by Jenkins (with journalist Jim Frederick).
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Excellent history and human story
- By Anonymous User on 09-16-21
By: Charles Robert Jenkins, and others
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When Heaven and Earth Changed Places
- A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace
- By: Le Ly Hayslip, Jay Wurts
- Narrated by: Nancy Kwan
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Abridged
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This haunting memoir tells the brutal story of the Vietnam War from the perspective of an innocent victim whose childhood was dominated by violence, devastation, and conflicts between the teachings of her culture and the realities of war. The youngest in a close-knit Buddhist family, Le Ly Hayslip was 12 years old when U.S. helicopters landed in her village. She was raped and "ruined" for marriage by Viet Cong soldiers, imprisoned and tortured by the South Vietnamese, and sentenced to death by the Viet Cong. Ultimately fleeing to the U.S. with her children, she finally found peace, and in 1986, she was reunited with her family in Vietnam. The story of her homecoming, interwoven with her memories of the war years, paints a vivid picture of a noble, optimistic woman and her native country.
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Difficult to listen to
- By heatherhg on 07-01-07
By: Le Ly Hayslip, and others
What listeners say about Dear Leader
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- DocJim
- 07-24-14
Everyone living in a free world should read this!
This is a heart-touching story that will make you feel and think deeply. You will get a great insight into how a starving country will allow adults and kids die by the thousands, and yet to keep the world from focusing on that will militarily attack disputed islands and do other things just short of war to keep things confused.
It shows the depth of evil in a communist dictatorship. Often, I am asked why I back a large western military. The answer to me is simple. Evil lives on. Everyone should read this book (or listen to it via Audible) to obtain a clearer understanding of what can happen in a totally corrupt nation -- even to the "privileged".
This is a book a thinking person will be very glad they took the time to read.
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23 people found this helpful
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- Timothy
- 07-23-14
North Korea is a giant personality cult
I found this book thoroughly interesting, engaging, and thought-provoking. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure whether to believe everything Jang Jin-sung has written here. At several points, it was gut wrenching in the way that those old WWII newsreels are ... you know the ones I mean ... you can't bear to keep looking, but can't bear to look away either. Like with those old films, the most horrifying thing to realize is that this is actually going on in the world right now -- people are living in that place, so deeply deceived and kept under the thumb of one of the most vile regimes known to man.
If everything Mr. Jin-sung has related here is true, North Korea is a terrible place to live, and its leader(s) are the scum of the earth -- the scum of the scum of the earth. It will indeed be a joyous day when that regime is overthrown.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Gillian
- 02-24-15
An Edge of Your Seat Thriller!
Jang Jin-sung starts the book with his life inside North Korea as a poet and quickly becomes disillusioned. Finally, he is forced, no options, to run for his life with a friend. "Dear Leader" gives a view into North Korea that only "Nothing to Envy" does more painfully, and every step of the way, we the readers, hold our breaths. Because we know, as Jang knows, as his friend knows, bad, bad, bad things will happen if they get caught trying to escape to China.
One of the things that I liked about this book, however, was that, through the doom and gloom, there were some mighty good people, willing to risk their lives (yeah, sure, maybe a couple of them asked for a pittance, but money or not, they were risking prison/death just the same) to help the young men out. So many times, books/stories of this nature have no bright spots. I was so happy to listen to people caring. I'm not sure that I'd have that kind of bravery when it came down to it, especially since Jang and everyone can NEVER relax; escaping North Korea is bad enough, but China is no picnic either.
You will bite your nails with this book. You will gasp with horror and surprise. You will pace as you listen (instead of doing things you need to do like, oh, say laundry 'cause the washing machine is too loud and you won't be able to hear the book over it...)
If you're looking for an exciting, enthralling, if appalling/horrifying read, "Dear Leader" definitely is it!
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9 people found this helpful
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- Dennis
- 07-29-19
First Person Account of Freedom's call.
it is difficult to imagine life in such a closed, iron fisted country. Count our lucky stars to have been born into freedom. A great read, great narration..
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1 person found this helpful
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- Lisa Briggs
- 06-14-18
Very enlightening about the country of North Korea
In today's world of Kim Jung Un and President Trump, this book gave me great insight into the inner workings of a totalitarian government!
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- David P Glanville
- 08-28-16
Revealing
I did not know much about North Korea before reading this book. It is not a history, but it reveals the inner workings of a very closed and mysterious world. It is told very well, and is as entertaining as it is informative.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-24-17
Fascinating and interesting book!
Great book! I highly recommend it, especially to those interested in North Korea. Fascinating and couldn't stop listening!
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- Alicia
- 01-06-18
Amazing!
such a great book! non fiction but written in a litterary fashion. the story is amazing as is the narrator. it will have you in the edge of your seat. the book provides a window into North Korea.
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- madelinewolberg
- 11-19-15
Compelling and imformative
This book is great. It reads like an exciting fiction book but contains more information than a history textbook. Awesome.
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- James Kim
- 05-25-15
Compelling and heart wrenching...
I had to remind myself that this was not a fictional story as it was read to me.
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