Author Archive
Staring into the “Fog” of North Korea Reporting: Pyongyang’s January Lockdown
Sino-NK likes to look behind the scenes to the nuts and bolts of North Korea news-gathering. In this essay, Daily NK staffer Robert Lauler examines the details of a recent case: the Pyongyang lockdown.
COVID-19 in North Korea: A Mirror into the Soul of the South
An outbreak of COVID-19 in North Korea may, indeed, become the ending point of greater cooperation between the two Koreas for the time being, but the two Koreas were arguably never really that close in the first place. Robert Lauler explains.
Dual Perspective: Reading Thae Yong-ho
Thae Yong-ho’s memoir marks a bold attempt to push back the tide of South Korean public ambivalence toward North Korea, a sprawling 500-page narrative of his experiences in the DPRK diplomatic corps over twenty years and ending with his 2016 defection. Robert Lauler takes a look at this essential, if flawed, text.
Imagining a Sino-US Conflict: Review of Kim Jin-myung’s Novel “US-China War”
South Korean novelist Kim Jin-myung released the behemoth “US-China War” in December last year. Kim controversially alleges that Washington’s strategic goal may not “merely” be the demolition of the DPRK, but crossing the Yalu to destroy the rising China, too. Robert Lauler reviews this pertinent and testy work of political fiction.
The Rise of the Anonymous Writer: A Review of Kim Yu-kyung’s “Place of Human Desecration”
Where Deborah Smith’s translation of “The Accusation” opened up Bandi’s short stories for the English-speaking world, there are several novels by defector writers that are only in Korean. “Place of Human Desecration” is one. Robert Lauler reviews it.
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