The Sorcerer of Pyongyang

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On a guided tour through the countryside in 2018, Marcel Theroux spotted some soldiers washing their uniforms in a river. It draws on and fictionalises elements of North Korean memoirs such as Jang Jin-sung’s Dear Leader, adds a touch of The Kite Runner’s coming-of-age melancholy and slots in some thriller-inspired set pieces.

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

And in truth, both the danger he’d faced and his resourcefulness had increased in subsequent tellings.

The years of political study, of math problems that involved multiplying numbers of American soldiers by numbers of missiles, of learning the history of the Korean Workers’ Party and the exemplary life stories of the Dear and Great Leaders meant that Jun-su knew immediately what Tae-il was doing. Drawing on his own experiences visiting the country and the testimonies of North Korean refugees, Theroux paints an intimate, vivid portrait of North Korean life, from the famine of the early 1990s to the country's antagonistic, insular present. The book she was referring to was the ledger in which she recorded all the shortcomings of the building’s residents. Occasionally grateful patients made small presents of food to the doctor: some rice cakes, dried fruit—even once a small pot of honey from a pregnant woman who had been trying a long time to conceive.

BBC Sounds - The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux BBC Sounds - The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux

A maid, Kim Bok-mi, who found the rule book under the bed when she was preparing the hotel room for a visiting Soviet astrophysicist, was alarmed by the cover. I have always been fascinated by thoughts of what it is like to live in a country like North Korea, to not have the freedoms to make our own decisions that we take for granted. Having enjoyed The Secret Books much more than I was expecting, I was looking forward to picking up something new from Theroux. I didn’t care for the matter-of-fact writing and swift passage of time that happens throughout the book, but at the same time I couldn’t put it down and easily found myself invested in the characters.Jun-su read the book so many times that within twenty-four hours he knew every frame of it by heart. He held out the thin plastic bag containing the two or three hundred grams of cornmeal mush left over from the bait balls.

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

The lively, page-turning narrative sometimes falters into thinly disguised nonfiction that overshadows the characters and the development of their relationships. You can tell your father I don’t need his fish,” said Teacher Kang grumpily, settling back down onto his mattress. Coupons were handed out as usual for rice, cooking oil, meat, and the occasional gray slab of frozen pollock, but when citizens turned up to exchange the vouchers for food at the state-run distribution centers, they were told the shelves were empty. However, when he discovers a copy of The Dungeon Master's Guide, left behind in a hotel room by a rare foreign visitor, a new and colorful world opens up to him.Just like the North Korean people, the cosmonauts, leaderless knights, scientists, or worker bees were compelled to fall back on their own courage and resourcefulness. The man was working quickly, fishing out the finished balls and putting them in a cone of newspaper.