Published : Jan. 17, 2013 - 19:51
With the abduction of an American tour operator in November, a provocative missile launch in December, and a high-profile visit by Google’s Eric Schmidt this month, North Korea’s scion Kim Jong-un has garnered extra international attention of late.
This succession of provocations makes the timing of the English-language translation of a 2011 graphic novel about the North’s irascible junior Kim all the more pointed.
In the novel, Ha Tae-keung, a National Assembly representative for the Saenuri Party, delivers polemical punches against Kim, North Korea’s knighted Great Successor.
“The Great Successor: Kim Jong-un” by Ha Tae-keung
In addition to being a conservative politician, Ha is also president of Open Radio for North Korea and a member of the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea.
Written by Ha and illustrated by Cho Byeong-seon, “Great Successor” is a character profile in the form of a graphic novel, divided into five parts with two prefaces.
This English-language version is a product of Hungry Dictator Press, a division of Exile Press. President and founder Peter Liptak, an American writer and publisher based in Seoul, said he founded Hungry Dictator Press to publish books about North Korea and to “give voice to the people of North Korea.”
Ha reveals in his prefaces the origins of some of his source material, including Lee Han-yong’s “Kim Jong-il’s Royal Family,” a 2005 publication originally published in 1996 under the title “Taedong River Royal Family.”
Lee was a larger-than-life personality. A North Korean defector with close ties to the Kim family’s inner circle, Lee lived a shadowy life as a defector in the South and the reasons for his death remain just as murky.
He was murdered in front of his Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, apartment in 1997, possibly in revenge for his book or his defection, or both. Local police also suggested he may have been gunned down over gambling debts or by a jilted lover.
Writer Jang Jin-seong, another North Korean defector, and intelligence officer-turned-Joongang Ilbo reporter Lee Yeong-jong are two other sources for Ha’s novel.
“Great Successor” is full of interesting tidbits about the North Korean leader’s early life and his personality, none of it positive.
Indeed, Ha’s portrayal of Kim is reminiscent of a Hitlerian clone in Franklin Schaffner’s sci-fi thriller “Boys From Brazil.” Could anyone really be that unfeeling and hateful?
The novel also retells the well-traveled narrative of how Kim Jong-il sidelined Jong-un’s two older brothers, Jong-nam and Jong-chul, leaving him as the sole heir.
Jong-un’s half-brother, Jong-nam, displeased his father by advocating economic reforms during the height of the North’s famine in the late 1990s. His fate was sealed when he was caught sneaking into Japan on a trip to visit Tokyo Disneyland in May 2001, a move seen as revealing a secret fetish for capitalism.
Jong-un’s second-oldest brother Jong-chul never really had a chance, according to “Great Successor.” That was that, when Jong-chul was spotted at an Eric Clapton concert in Germany in June 2006. However, unlike older half-brother Jong-nam, Jong-chul supported Jong-un’s eventual ascendancy as the “Great Successor.”
By Philip Iglauer (ephilip2011@heraldcorp.com)