Author provides a glimpse into a North Korean bookstore
Writer Jose Luis Peixoto has been sharing his experiences from traveling in North Korea in 2012, including traveling by train and going to a grocery store, via the literary and arts journal .
Now Peixoto鈥檚 latest installment recounts what a bookstore in the famously secretive country is like.
The store that the writer visited, which was located in Pyongyang, was called the Foreign Language Bookshop and the majority of what was for sale were works by Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, available in a number of languages, or books of which they were the subject.
According to Peixoto, the fiction section was small enough that he purchased a copy of every title they had, which included an epic poem in English titled 鈥淢ount Paektu鈥� and a novella titled 鈥淭he People of the Fighting Village,鈥� which was penned by the director of the prose sub-committee of the Central Committee of the Korean Writers' Union. Also available and purchased by Peixeto were a folk tales collection titled 鈥淭he Legends of Pyongyang鈥� that had been converted to French, a short story collection titled 鈥淎 Usual Morning,鈥� which included a tale about the Great Leader solving the difficulties of an agricultural cooperative, and 鈥淪ea of Blood,鈥� a novel version of the well-known opera. (The opera 鈥淏lood鈥� is cited as having been written by Kim Il-sung, while the book was listed as written by ChoSeon Novelist Association of the 4.15 Culture Creation Group, according to the .)
Peixoto noted that he picked up another title, which 鈥渄espite not being in the literary fiction section, seemed to me could be read in the same light. It was called The Democratic People's Republic of Korea: an Earthly Paradise for the People.鈥�
As reported by Monitor writer Husna Haq, Australian doctoral candidate Christopher Richardson recently shared stories he鈥檇 found while researching North Korean children鈥檚 literature. Titles such as 鈥淎 Winged Horse鈥� and 鈥淭he Butterfly and the Cock鈥� were listed as written by Il-sung, while the story 鈥淏oys Wipe Out Bandits鈥� apparently came from Jong-il. It is believed to be likely that the leaders used ghost writers.
However, Richardson said the quality was better than some might think.听
鈥淚 was astounded that children's books (purportedly) written by Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung were vastly more readable than one would expect from any political leader in the democratic west, still less a severe authoritarian,鈥� Richardson said. 鈥淣orth Korean children's books and cartoons proved to be often entertaining, colorful, action-packed, and not so different to children's books and cartoons anywhere.鈥�
