Very few journalists know and understand North Korea as deeply as Philippe Pons. A veteran correspondent for Le Monde in Tokyo, he visited DPRK for the first time in 1980, to cover the 6th Congress of the Workers’ Party, and he reported on the 7th this May, too.

For the last decade, he has been traveling to Pyongyang and provincial cities approximately twice a year, invariably bringing back illuminating, in-depth and engaging articles, free from the typical stale journalistic clichés about the country.  

As a journalist and as a writer, Philippe Pons makes every effort to lay bare