Living on an island just miles from North Korea, Keum-suk Gendry-Kim regularly hears the booming artillery fire, roaring helicopters and howling sirens, a reminder of the inter-Korean conflict that never truly ended.

And that experience has helped shape the direction of the acclaimed author’s latest work exploring the fragility of peace, a graphic novel provocatively titled “My Friend Kim Jong Un.”

The book tells the story of DPRK leader Kim Jong Un from his time as a teenager living incognito in Switzerland to becoming the powerful head of the North Korean state, drawing on interviews with experts, defectors and even