Many countries profiled in this column might be considered obscure. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – DPRK or North Korea for short – has the opposite problem: it is notorious.
The weirdly wicked deeds (real or invented) of its young leader Kim Jong-un, who inherited power on the death of his father Kim Jong-il in 2011 – his father, Kim Il-sung, founded the state back in 1948 – are juicy tabloid fare. More books are published in English on the DPRK than on any other small impoverished state, be it scholarly and policy studies or the five defector memoirs from major publishers this year alone. A dozen Western tour firms will take you to the so-called ‘hermit Kimdom’ (where you’ll be perfectly safe and eat quite well, unlike most of the citizens you won’t see).
