Autobiography of kim jong il

annuloeb's review against another edition

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2.0

Meh. I don't enjoy fiction, especially if (fictionally) narrated by a murderous dictator. Skimmed through this simply for a different perspective on North Korea. Did not find it amusing or informative. The book requires extreme in-depth knowledge of Korean history and political actions in order to constantly compare the statements with reality.

And although the "autobiography" is largely based on known propaganda tales, it still needs to be taken with too many grains of salt as no-one actually knows what the Dear Leader was thinking. I may have enjoyed the book more if it had a parallel fact-checking commentary explaining what "actually" happened or what we know as opposed to what North Koreans were told by their government.

geoffwood's review against another edition

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1.0

Call me naive, but I came into this innocent of the author or any context for this and took it at face value as some manner of legit translation of North Korean propaganda. It does capture that tone, with hundreds of pages of treacly, stilted prose thick with "then they all clapped" moments. It eventually becomes apparent textually and if one, say, reads the author's Wikipedia page, that this is heavily

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