The Sorcerer of Pyongyang

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Growing up amid the starvation and oppression of 1990s North Korea, 10-year-old Cho Jun-su stumbles upon a mysterious game, left behind in a hotel room by a rare foreign visitor. As he stood in line in the playground before class, Jun-su thought about the sorcerer Bong Chon-ju. He imagined him mixing potions or studying magic in a tower somewhere, far from Wonsan. Jun-su wondered about his life. When he wasn’t adventuring, what sorts of things did he do? Did he eat corn porridge for breakfast? Did he attend weekly self-criticism sessions of the Magicians’ Union? Were there portraits of the Dear and Great Leaders in the room where he studied magic? And sometimes, when Jun-su raised his hand in class to answer a question, he even pretended that he was Bong Chon-ju himself, gathering a ball of light with his fingers to cast a spell over his classmates.

THE SORCERER OF PYONGYANG | Kirkus Reviews

Jun-su bowed happily in reply and began a speech of thanks for the card and flowers they had sent him. Just as Jun-su had predicted, the crowd parted, and two vehicles began to nose slowly through the mass of people. 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?” A soldier with a rough voice read loudly from a piece of paper. “Kang Yeong-nam, the people’s court finds you guilty of spying. The sentence is death.” A handful of pedestrians had stopped to watch, as though they might satisfy their hunger by consuming the food with their eyes.Over the subsequent week and a half, the delegation was shown around model farms, a granite quarry, a sewing-machine factory, a youth center containing many preternaturally talented child performers, the Pyongyang Children’s Foodstuffs Factory, and Kim Il-sung University. 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.

The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux BBC Radio 4 - The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux

He thought of Teacher Kang trying to touch his pepper and he knew instantly he’d done the same to Tae-il. “Teacher Kang touched you,” he said, uttering the words almost inadvertently, just as they had crossed his mind.

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. Jun-su took it and set off towards the complex of apartments. He felt excited as he approached the unfamiliar building. He imagined that he was a spy entrusted with an important mission for the Fatherland. Two children were hanging laundry on a line suspended between two spindly trees. One of them called out to ask him where he was going. Jun-su proudly ignored him. There’s more to it than that,” said Jun-su. “He eats rats and makes shoes out of birch bark.” Trying not to disturb the needles in his chest, Jun-su slid his hand under the mattress to retrieve the mysterious book. He passed it to Teacher Kang. “It’s in here,” he said. His mother continued: “?‘He was popular, obedient, loyal, happy, and kind and lived a long life.’?” Ten-year-old Jun-su is a bright and obedient boy whose only desire is to be a credit to his family, his nation, and most importantly, his Dear Leader. 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.

The Sorcerer of Pyongyang by Marcel Theroux review — playing

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. Jun-su climbed the echoing stairwell. The door of Teacher Kang’s apartment was open. Jun-su peered inside. He glimpsed a skinny shirtless figure lying at full stretch on a thin mattress. Jun-su coughed. There was no response. He tapped on the opened door and said: “Teacher, I’ve brought you something.” Still no reply. He slipped off his shoes and boldly entered the apartment. Jun-su climbed the echoing stairwell. The door of Teacher Kang’s apartment was open. Jun-su peered inside. He glimpsed a skinny shirtless figure lying at full stretch on a thin mattress. Jun-su coughed. There was no response. He tapped on the opened door and said:“Teacher, I’ve brought you something.” Still no reply. He slipped off his shoes and boldly entered the apartment. You don’t have to be good,” said Teacher Kang. “It’s not real life.” And then he added, in a casual voice: “In the House of Possibility, you can even choose to be bad.” That’s right,” said the medical officer. “But sometimes, when I listen to your heart through the stethoscope, I hear a whooshing sound after the boom-boom.”At other times, Dr. Park would sit on the cot and Jun-su would tell her the stories from comic books. Often she seemed distracted or uninterested. But when he told her The Blizzard in the Jungle he made the central character a heroic female doctor, and he could tell she liked that one. He heard the front door open. It was his mother. She sat on the end of his mattress and felt his forehead. Her cool hands smoothed his face and hair. “I bought you something,” she said, and she laid a comic book beside him and—equally wondrous—a tiny bottle of fizzy melon juice. His father’s words hit Jun-su with the force of a blow. So-dok was an undemonstrative man and this behavior was deeply out of character. It would never have occurred to Jun-su that his father might be angry for his own private reasons. Jun-su assumed that he had done something wrong. They walked along in silence for a little while. For a moment Jun-su thought he might burst into tears. A compulsively readable tale, all the better for being set in one of the most secretive countries in the world. Marcel Theroux captures the extraordinary atmosphere of North Korean life with wit and insight.” —Michael Palin, author of North Korean Journal