Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea

(Drawn and Quarterly, 2005)
™ and © Drawn and Quarterly

Calling Pyongyang a “graphic novel” stretches the term to its breaking point, but it’s a vastly entertaining travel diary. In 2001, Guy Delisle, a French Canadian cartoonist, travels to North Korea to take charge of an animated series. Along with dealing with a work force with whom he can’t communicate, he suffers the usual deprivations of being far from home in addition to the ultimate isolation of being one of the few Westerners permitted inside the most isolated nation on Earth.

Delisle invokes such cultural touchstones as the novel 1984 and The Prisoner television series to give readers an idea of what it was like living in the foreigner “enclosure,” a high-security area where special “guides” try to keep him as far away as possible from ordinary Koreans.

It’s not just that North Korea is a police state; it’s also a poorly operated one held together by the cult of personality surrounding a “Great Leader.” (Who, in spite of being dead, appears frequently on television.) And there’s a special guest appearance by Corto Maltese.

— S. A. Bennett

From the Publisher:

Famously referred to as an “Axis-of-Evil” country, North Korea remains one of the most secretive and mysterious nations in the world today. A series of manmade and natural catastrophes have also left it one of the poorest. When the fortress-like country recently opened the door a crack to foreign investment, cartoonist Guy Delisle found himself in its capital of Pyongyang on a work visa for a French film animation company, becoming one of the few Westerners to witness current conditions in the surreal showcase city. Armed with a smuggled radio and a copy of 1984, Delisle could only explore Pyongyang and its countryside while chaperoned by his translator and a guide. But among the statues, portraits and propaganda of leaders Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il—the world’s only Communist dynasty—Delisle was able to observe more than was intended of the culture and lives of the few North Koreans he encountered. His astute and wry musings on life in the austere and grim regime form the basis of this remarkable graphic novel. Pyongyang is an informative, personal, and accessible look at an enigmatic country.

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#1 Hardcover (Hardcover Edition)

October, 2005
Cover Price: $19.95
1 copy available for $16.00

Guy Delisle