Having been lambasted in the pages of the Huffington Postand in somewhat more measured tones in the British House of Lords following my last essay on the British Council’s photographic exhibition, I now turn to what I hope is the safer world of books, specifically to writings about North Korea by those who have lived there.
One of the curiosities about North Korea is the massive number of books and articles that have been written about it by people who have not been there. Of course, this is not always the fault of the authors. The DPRK authorities are not generous towards visitors. The concept of visiting scholars seems non-existent and the tight controls applied to those who do visit produces at best a series of very similar blogs, or articles that could have been – and indeed sometimes were –written before the person concerned actually visited. North Korean officials will complain about negative writing but all too often they have only themselves to blame.
Having been lambasted in the pages of the Huffington Postand in somewhat more measured tones in the British House of Lords following my last essay on the British Council’s photographic exhibition, I now turn to what I hope is the safer world of books, specifically to writings about North Korea by those who have lived there.
One of the curiosities about North Korea is the massive number of books and articles that have been written about it by people who have not been there. Of course, this is not always the fault of the authors. The DPRK authorities are not generous towards visitors. The concept of visiting scholars seems non-existent and the tight controls applied to those who do visit produces at best a series of very similar blogs, or articles that could have been – and indeed sometimes were –written before the person concerned actually visited. North Korean officials will complain about negative writing but all too often they have only themselves to blame.
Get the Daily Update
Start your day with the North Korea stories that matter most –
After Britain and North Korea re-established diplomatic relations in 2000, Hoare was appointed British Chargé d'affaires in Pyongyang; and his work laid the foundation for the establishment of a full embassy in the North Korean capital.
Previously, Hoare had been head of the Foreign Office's North Asia and Pacific Research Group. He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1969 and was stationed in Seoul in 1981 1984 and in Beijing in 1988-1991.