by Markus Bell and Christopher Richardson

With the world’s attention fixed on the impact of the North Korean nuclear test and heightened threats of war, the lives of ordinary North Koreans have been silenced once again. Lives silenced, on the one hand, by the thunder from Pyongyang, claiming to speak on their behalf with one official voice, and on the other, by a chorus of denunciation and analysis in Western media dividing ordinary North Koreans between brainwashed enablers and hapless victims.

In recent years, writers such as Barbara Demick and Blaine Harden, and memoirists such as Kang Chol-hwan and Felix