The Sorcerer of Pyongyang

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The announcer was reporting on the visit of the Dear Leader to a new ostrich farm outside Pyongyang. Jun-su bowed happily in reply and began a speech of thanks for the card and flowers they had sent him.

The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux BBC Radio 4 - The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux

If you aren't a fan or have any working knowledge of North Korea or dungeons and dragons you probably won't appreciate it. I am a Dungeons and Dragons fan, so I loved that aspect of the story but if you are put off by it, don’t be.Out of gratitude, they gave Bong Chon-ju not only the one hundred gold pieces they’d promised as payment, but a magic shirt that protected him from fire and a spell book with two new spells in it: “Speak with Animals” and “Detect Treasure. In the foyer of the building—just as in Jun-su’s building—was a glassed-in booth where the chief of the building’s People’s Unit stood guard. Waiting for the bus, waiting for their day to collect rations from the distribution centre, waiting for a glimpse of the leader, waiting for the on-the-spot guidance, waiting for the decisive arrival of socialism that would finally make sense of all their waiting. The author acts somewhat as a documentarian covering Jun-su's life, revealing the harsh realities of living under an oppressive regime where the rules can change without notice. The secret police of the Ministry of State Security—the bowibu—were notoriously tireless in their efforts to protect socialism from internal and external threats.

The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux review — playing

Jun-su’s student life in Pyongyang looks idyllic: he drinks with friends, begins a secret role-playing group on campus, and starts dating a girl from the Pyongyang elite. But even as defeat seemed almost certain, there was an unearthly light gathering in the sorcerer’s raised left hand. Most crucially, the novel powerfully embodies the plight of North Koreans in the state’s vast shadow.

Opening the book, Jun-su stared uncomprehendingly at the name of Fidel Olatunji-Kapsberger inscribed on the flyleaf in both an elaborate cursive script and Elvish runes. Here the chief of the People’s Unit was a man who was studying an old copy of the Rodong Sinmun through a pair of reading glasses held together with old tape. Beside the road, a long banner declared: WE WILL SAFEGUARD WITH OUR LIVES THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE WORKERS’ PARTY OF KOREA. They were forced to endure immense privation before they were finally able to escape and bring the good news of their discovery to the grateful inhabitants of earth.

The Sorcerer of Pyongyang | Book by Marcel Theroux | Official The Sorcerer of Pyongyang | Book by Marcel Theroux | Official

Teacher Kang grasped Jun-su’s skinny wrist with his left hand and placed three fingers along his forearm. The thing is, he’s not a normal fellow,” said Jun-su’s father, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor polishing his work shoes for the next day. This image would certainly have resulted in the book’s confiscation on arrival in Pyongyang, had the customs officials not been preoccupied with the moral degeneracy implied by David Kapsberger’s grubby suit and shaggy hair. This is how it turned out that, sometime during the summer of 1995, Cho So-dok’s eleven-year-old son, Cho Jun-su, stumbled across the book while he was fetching a mattress for a visiting relative.It only just barely falls short of 5 stars because there are some abrupt changes from Jun-su's POV to the author's own internal thoughts without warning.