The Great Successor

  • Author Anna Fifield
  • Narrator Olivia Mackenzie-Smith
  • Publisher John Murray Press
  • Run Time 11 hours and 37 minutes
  • Format Audio
  • Genre Politics and government.
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What to expect

The behind-the-scenes story of the rise and reign of the world's strangest and most elusive tyrant, Kim Jong Un, by the journalist with the best connections and insights into the bizarrely dangerous world of North Korea.

The Great Successor is an irreverent yet insightful quest to understand the life of Kim Jong Un, one of the world's most secretive dictators. Kim's life is swathed in myth and propaganda, from the plainly silly--he supposedly ate so much Swiss cheese that his ankles gave way--to the grimly bloody stories of the ways his enemies and rival family members have perished at his command.

One of the most knowledgeable journalists on modern Korea, Anna Fifield has exclusive access to Kim's aunt and uncle who posed as his parents while he was growing up in Switzerland, members of the entourage that accompanied Dennis Rodman on his quasi-ambassadorial visits with Kim, and the Japanese sushi chef whom Kim befriended and who was the first outsider to identify him as the inevitable successor to his father as supreme ruler. She has been able to create a captivating portrait of the oddest and most isolated political regime in the world, one that is broken yet able to summon a US president for peace talks, bankrupt yet in possession of nuclear weapons. Kim Jong Un; ridiculous but deadly, and a man of our times.

(P) 2019 Hachette Audio

Critics Review

An important and rigorous piece of journalism written with clarity and urgency

Sunday Times

Astonishing and insightful – the inside story of the mercurial man now making headlines, and history. Essential reading

Lyse Doucet

Packed with the fascinating and frequently bizarre anecdotal detail

The Times

By far the most complete insight into the Hermit Kingdom I have ever seen. Full of fascinating details

Christina Lamb

Superb . . . a detailed account of a regime and a personality that are normally shrouded in mystery

Financial Times

Fascinating

Mail on Sunday

Anna Fifield’s excellent account, based on years of reporting from Korea, dispenses with the overfamiliar anecdotes about this ghastly spoiled-brat-turned-dictator

Evening Standard

Anna Fifield owns the North Korea story today in a way that few other journalists, myself included, have ever been able to claim mastery over this most elusive subject.

Nothing to Envy

Excellent . . . an illuminating insight into the life and thinking of North Korea’s ruthless leader

Evening Standard, Book of the Week

Elegantly written and exhaustively researched

Guardian

superb…a model of investigative diligence and rigour

New Statesman

Those anticipating James Bond villain stories will not be disappointed

Spectator

The Great Successor brims with important and exclusive information about the Kim family

Financial Times

an authoritative, revealing and spry account of the world’s most isolated political regime

Sunday Business Post

A hard-earned, comprehensive portrait . . . essential reading

Irish Independent

Fascinating

Hot Press

Anna Fifield disentangles the propaganda that surrounds Kim and presents a clear-eyed portrait of a secretive dictator.

The Sunday Business Post

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