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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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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Gotta Tellya
- 09-29-14
Outstanding! A life-changing listen.
I agree with other reviews stating that once you start listening, it's hard to pause for any reason. This is a heart-stopping story, probably the greatest eye-opener I have ever read. The North Korean regime is abominable--how truly horrible, I had no idea until I listened to Dear Leader. The author, Jang Jin-sung, gave up a privileged existence to seek truth and freedom outside the confines of his brutally repressed country. Even though it is obvious from the start that he must have survived his escape attempt in order to tell his story, I was on the edge of my seat until I finished the book and confirmed that Mr. Jang had indeed survived. I can't say much more without providing spoilers. Either read or listen to this book. You won't be the same person after you finish it. The narration is excellent and moving, as is the writing. I would give Dear Leader ten stars if I could.
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37 people found this helpful
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- Cammarata
- 07-12-14
You cant get away from Orwell's "1984".
If you could sum up Dear Leader in three words, what would they be?
Thats easy!! A plagiarist of George Orwell, a pedophile, and a narcissistic sociopath. I am not overstating when I say this book could change your life. Your own problems will simply disappear into an embarrassing haze of utter meaningless. Forget North Korea's violations concerning nuclear proliferation, this government has inflicted genocide using starvation against its people, and should lose their sovereignty. The suffering of the Korean people most notably the execution of the soul is a repeat of man's worst history. Never has a such a high ranking official from North Korea defected and lived to tell about the horror left behind. There is actually a "Room 101" used for practically the same atrocities as in Orwell's 1984. Speechless and heartbroken, there is nothing else to say. A must read!!!
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28 people found this helpful
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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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- Amazon Customer
- 07-12-14
Stop browsing and get this Book
Warning this book my cause you problems at work and or in your relationships. Because once you start listening you can't stop.
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23 people found this helpful
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- Andy
- 07-17-14
richly detailed account of getting out
A captivating and richly detailed recap of the authors escape from North Korea. Very interesting to hear exactly how it was done.
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16 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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- 9S
- 03-13-15
Mesmerizing.
This story coming from a top propagandist of the North Korean government is simply amazing. The author was was a true believer in the regime. But after meeting Dear Leader and seeing the outrageous luxury he wallowed in Jang started having doubts. As time passed Jang saw the deprivation, starvation, imprisonment and murder of hungry citizens he could no longer continue to participate in the lies he was required to write. He and a friend decided to escape North Korea and tell the world the truth of the truly evil nature of Dear Leader and his government.
The book reads just like a good thriller, but it is true which makes it heartbreaking. The amazing attempt at escape will keep you glued to this wonderful book. It will also leave you grateful for the privilege of living in the United States, or any other free nation.
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14 people found this helpful
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- Sunshine
- 07-26-14
Prepare to see the layers of truth revealed
What did you love best about Dear Leader?
The slow unfolding of the authors change of heart and willingness to ask himself the difficult questions. After all, he was priviledged, well fed and taken care of physically. To willingly work himself out of the labrinthe of lies and deceit was amazing to me.
Who was your favorite character and why?
I didn't have a favorite character. Jang and all those he worked with and those who helped him were fascinating to me. Looking forward to hearing more from the author.
What about Daniel York’s performance did you like?
I have not listened to any other performances by Daniel York before this. I can say only that he was remarkable in making the entire story come to life and believable.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
A Manual on how to lie to the world and get away with it!
Any additional comments?
It's hard after listening to this book to not go off on a political rant, but I think I'll do that elsewhere.
Well worth the listen. I agree with the reviewer who mentioned after hearing these truths it is very difficult to pay attention to our petty little problems.
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14 people found this helpful
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- CA mom
- 07-26-14
Unbelieveable!
Where does Dear Leader rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
The combination of an exciting personal narrative with shocking expose about what goes on in North Korea as recently as 10 years ago blew me away. I loved this book.
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11 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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-
Story
Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education". Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea.
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Riveting!!
- By Iread on 11-12-20
By: Chol-hwan Kang, and others
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A River in Darkness
- One Man's Escape from North Korea
- By: Masaji Ishikawa, Risa Kobayashi - translator, Martin Brown - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.
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Awful! And I don't mean the book . . .
- By DJW on 01-03-18
By: Masaji Ishikawa, and others
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Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
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The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
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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 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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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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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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
-
The Girl with Seven Names
- A North Korean Defector’s Story
- By: Hyeonseo Lee, David John
- Narrated by: Josie Dunn
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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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The Aquariums of Pyongyang
- By: Chol-hwan Kang, Pierre Rigoulot
- Narrated by: Stephen Park
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education". Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea.
-
-
Riveting!!
- By Iread on 11-12-20
By: Chol-hwan Kang, and others
-
A River in Darkness
- One Man's Escape from North Korea
- By: Masaji Ishikawa, Risa Kobayashi - translator, Martin Brown - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.
-
-
Awful! And I don't mean the book . . .
- By DJW on 01-03-18
By: Masaji Ishikawa, and others
-
Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
-
-
The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
-
A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
- By: Sebastien Falletti, Eunsun Kim
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Broad and nuanced account of North Korea
- By Neuron on 07-29-15
By: Andrei Lankov
-
The Girl with Seven Names
- A North Korean Defector’s Story
- By: Hyeonseo Lee, David John
- Narrated by: Josie Dunn
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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'?
-
-
Did not like narrator
- By Linda H. Andreae on 10-09-19
By: Hyeonseo Lee, and others
-
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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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
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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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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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
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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Stars Between the Sun and Moon
- One Woman's Life in North Korea and Escape to Freedom
- By: Lucia Jang, Susan McClelland
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Born in 1970s North Korea, Lucia Jang grew up in a typical household - her parents worked in the factories, and the family scraped by on rations. Nightly she bowed to her photo of Kim Il-Sung. It was the beginning of a chaotic period with a decade-long famine. Jang married an abusive man who sold their baby. She left him and went home to help her family by illegally crossing the river to China to trade goods. She was caught and imprisoned twice.
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Fantastic story. Well read.
- By Jfm on 02-20-16
By: Lucia Jang, and others
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The Last Girl
- My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
- By: Nadia Murad
- Narrated by: Ilyana Kadushin
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in Northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon. On August 15, 2014, when Nadia was just 21 years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves.
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A Heartbreaking Tale of Survival and Hope
- By Leahmgordon on 11-08-17
By: Nadia Murad