Now Jun-su started to notice other strange preparations for the visit. A layer of sand had been raked over the concrete in front of them. The two vehicles were green army jeeps, not the luxury cars that the Dear Leader would travel in. Dusk was falling on the low wooded hills that surrounded the airport. The stillness was strangely oppressive. An unsettling silence enveloped the visitors as they shuffled into the arrivals hall, which was austere and cavernous, and smelled faintly of detergent. I’m trying to think what’s best,” said Jun-su. Sententiously, he added: “The Great Leader says the best course of action is clear to the man who is practical.” The elder Kapsberger was an American citizen who had emigrated in the sixties to avoid the draft for the Vietnam War. He’d begun a new life in England as a graduate student in the political science department at the London School of Economics. Now he was a full professor and the world’s leading English-speaking expert on Juche thought, Kim Il-sung’s unique philosophy of Marxist self-reliance. However, the professor’s expertise was wholly theoretical; this was his first visit to North Korea. And, like all foreign visitors entering the country for the first time, he felt a thrilling combination of fear and curiosity as he handed over his US passport for inspection.

The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by All Book Marks reviews for The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by

The illness you had can last a long time and sometimes it can damage the valves in your heart,” she said.Not to touch it,” explained Teacher Kang calmly. He paused for a moment as though weighing a thought. “Unless you want me to.” He let this suggestion hang in the air for a moment. “There are circumstances where stimulation of the pepper can help increase vital energy,” he said. Although the teacher’s face was composed, there was something wild and excited in his eyes. Han-na said nothing. She had turned her face away and was wiping her eyes. Jun-su felt himself drifting off to sleep again. “Mum?” At that moment, the door of the changing room opened. Teacher Kim, their form mistress, called for the boys to hurry up. Jun-su knew she wouldn’t come into the boys’ room unless it was an emergency. He stood his ground, not taking his eyes off Tae-il.

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

Jun-su began to display stranger and more worrying symptoms. A red and white rash appeared on his lower limbs. His left knee swelled and became unbearably hot; then as that pain diminished, the joints in his right leg worsened. He was feverish and tired, but couldn’t sleep. At night he lay awake listening to his heart pounding. She ruffled his hair. “Don’t worry. It just means you need to rest. You can’t work in the fields. We’ll have to find some other things for you to do. I studied in Wonsan and I have a friend at the hospital who can examine you properly when you go home.” 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. In between polishes, he’d hold them up to the bulb to assess the shine. “Too much time studying books has given him crazy ideas. It’s made him—” So-dok hesitated. Han-na had caught his eye with a warning look. “Your mother just wants to know that he hasn’t done anything he shouldn’t have. We wouldn’t blame you if he had.” Lie still,” snapped Teacher Kang. “I studied medicine with Kim Bong-han. He was so smart the Great Leader put him on a stamp. If you work hard and do as your teacher says, they may put you on a stamp one day.”

There was no mention of Jun-su’s visit with the fish or of the events that had occurred in the classroom. In the middle of February, the school celebrated the Dear Leader’s birthday. Every child was given an egg to mark the occasion. Jun-su carried his home carefully in the palm of his hand. On the walls of Jun-su’s living room, as in every household, hung two portraits: one of the Great Leader and one of the Dear Leader. Han-na dusted them every day with a special white cloth. I know what happens in that one without even reading it,” said Teacher Kang. “Does he crash his plane and survive terrible hardship? Is his bravery held up to the people as an example of socialist heroism?” Later that evening, Jun-su’s mother sat beside him. “Teacher Kang says you’re suffering from rheumatic fever,” she said. “That’s the reason for the twitching.”

The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux | Waterstones

Your classmates said you were ill last autumn for a long time,” said the medical officer. She was wearing a white coat adorned with one of the newest and most desirable badges: a joint portrait of the Dear Leader and the Great Leader. Tae-il inclined his head casually to Jun-su. He was fond of retelling the story on which his legendary status depended. And in truth, both the danger he’d faced and his resourcefulness had increased in subsequent tellings. After a sudden descent and an abrupt landing that left the tour party shaken, the passengers made their way down the boarding ramp and towards the boxy Soviet-style terminal. A compulsively readable tale, all the better for being set in one of the most secretive countries in the world. In The Sorcerer of Pyongyang, Marcel Theroux captures the extraordinary atmosphere of North Korean life with wit and insight' Michael Palin This time while they were waiting for the needles to do their healing work, Jun-su didn’t close his eyes. “Have you read The Amazing Tincture?” he asked.

In 1995, an 11-year-old boy in North Korea, Cho Jun-su, stumbles across a strange, foreign book that will change his life. Helped in private by a teacher, Jun-su learns that it is a Dungeon Master's guide. Dungeons and Dragons opens up a whole new world of make-believe and imagination for the boy. The interest in North Korea is unsurprising in an era of rising totalitarian states and growing threats to basic freedoms in democratic countries. The latest addition to the catalogue of books about this little understood place is Marcel Theroux’s The Sorcerer of Pyongyang, which sets out to narrate the story of a nation, beginning in the 1990s, through the life of its main character, Cho Jun-su. Days passed. Jun-su’s health did not improve. Eventually Han-na bribed a doctor to pay a home visit. He said that what Jun-su needed were antibiotics, but there weren’t any available. In fact, there were plenty of antibiotics: Chinese-made ones that had been shipped into the country as part of the international aid effort. The doctor was probably lying in the hope of another bribe; he must have been hungry too.

The Sorcerer of Pyongyang - Marcel Theroux - Google Books The Sorcerer of Pyongyang - Marcel Theroux - Google Books

The best thing is for him to be a magic-user or sorcerer,” said Teacher Kang. “He can learn spells and do conjuring. But first you have to decide whether he is good or evil.” Something about the suggestion put Jun-su in a state of high alert. It was a terrifying and yet fascinating idea. “Are there different kinds of bad?” he asked. Who are the worst?” asked Jun-su. He sensed his father was distracted so he asked it again. In truth, it wasn’t a sincere question: every school-age child in North Korea knew the answer. The worst were the Yankee imperialists who had waged war on North Korea, who had divided the North from the South, and who had been defeated by the courage of the North Korean people inspired by the Juche idea. Like children around the world, Jun-su just enjoyed hearing the same stories told over and over, and he was priming his father for this one. At first, Jun-su’s mother stood at the doorway watching the sessions, but after a while, she left them alone.

The teachers suffered too. During a math class one day, Kang Yeong-nam, a dapper man in his fifties with a reputation as a disciplinarian, sat down suddenly in the middle of the room and turned pale. He gazed stupidly around him until the lesson ended and the baffled pupils filed out of class. Later, Jun-su saw Teacher Kang being helped to the sanatorium. Jun-su suddenly knew exactly what was happening. He knew the reason for the crowds, the sense of excitement—and even, in a strange way, for his good fortune with the food vendor.