In 2011 all universities in North Korea are shut down for an entire year, except
for the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. This is where
Suki Kim has accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months she will
eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them to write
, all under the watchful eye of the regime. Her letters are read by censors and
she must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but also from
her colleagues. As the weeks pass she discovers how easily her students lie, and
how total is their obedience to Kim Jong-il. She also, bravely, hints at the ex
istence of a world beyond their own: the internet, free travel, democracy, and o
ther ideas forbidden in a country where torture and execution are commonplace. T
his book offers a moving and incalculably rare glimpse of life inside the world'
s most inscrutable country.
