Suki Kim (born 1970) is a Korean American journalist and writer. She is the author of two books: the award-winning novel The Interpreter and a book of investigative journalism, Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite. Kim is the only writer ever to have lived undercover in North Korea to conduct immersive journalism.[2] Kim is currently a contributing editor at The New Republic.
Suki Kim | |
|---|---|
 At Miami Book Fair International, Nov. 2015 | |
| Born | 1970 (age 53–54) Seoul, South Korea |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Barnard College [1] |
| Genre | novel, essay |
| Notable works | The Interpreter, Without You, There is No Us |
| Notable awards | PEN Beyond Margins Award Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award |
| Website | |
| SukiKim.com | |
Early life
Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the United States with her family at thirteen.[3] Kim is a naturalized American citizen.
Kim graduated from Barnard College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Kim also studied East Asian Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She has received a Fulbright Research Grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Open Society Foundations Fellowship. Kim was also a Ferris Journalism Fellow at Princeton University, where she was a visiting lecturer.[4][5]
Work
The Interpreter
Kim's debut novel, The Interpreter, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2003, is a murder mystery about a young Korean-American woman, Suzy Park, living in New York City and searching for answers as to why her shopkeeper parents were murdered. Kim took a short term job as an interpreter in New York City when working on the novel to look into the life of an interpreter.[6] The book received positive critic reviews[7] and won several awards. The Interpreter was translated into Dutch, French, Korean, Italian, and Japanese.
Visits to North Korea and second book
Kim visited North Korea in February 2002 to participate in the 60th birthday celebration of Kim Jong-il. She documented this experience in a February 2003 cover essay for The New York Review of Books.[8]
Kim accompanied the New York Philharmonic in February 2008, when they traveled to Pyongyang for the historical cultural visit to North Korea from the United States. Her article, "A Really Big Show: The New York Philharmonic's fantasia in North Korea," was published in Harper's Magazine in December 2008.[9]
Her second book, Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite, is a work of investigative journalism about her three and a half months in Pyongyang, where she taught English at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology in 2011.[10]
The book has resulted in some controversy, with reviewers claiming that Kim brought harm on the students she wrote about, and that she caused tensions between the university and the North Korean government. The university staff accused Kim of making false claims about them.[11] However, Kim addressed her critics in a June 2016 essay in The New Republic. Kim mentioned the shortcomings of labelling her second book as a memoir and the irony in reviewers dismissing this work for containing the components typically praised in investigative journalism. Kim also described how racism and sexism influenced public views on her expertise.[12] Her publisher subsequently removed the label "memoir" from the cover of Without You, There Is No Us.
Latest work
In 2017, Suki Kim broke a sexual harassment scandal against John Hockenberry at WNYC in her article in The Cut.[13] Her investigation led to the firing of two longterm WNYC hosts, Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz,[14] as well as the eventual resignation of its CEO, Laura Walker,[15] and Chief Content officer, Dean Cappello.[16] Her article was voted as the Best Investigative Reporting of 2017 by Longreads.[17]
In 2020, Kim published an investigative feature in The New Yorker on Free Joseon, a group that has declared itself a provisional government for North Korea, and she was the first to interview the group's leader Adrian Hong while he was on the run from the Department of Justice.[18]
Bibliography
Books
| Year | Title |
|---|---|
| 2003 | The Interpreter |
| 2014 | Without You, There Is No Us; My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite |
Anthologies
| Year | Title | Ref |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | New York Stories: The Best of the City Section of the New York Times | |
| 2017 | The Moth Presents All These Wonders | [19] |
| 2018 | The Best American Essays 2018 | [20] |
Essays and op-eds
About North Korea and South Korea
| Year | Title | Publication | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | A Visit to North Korea | The New York Review of Books | [21] |
| 2003 | Korea's New Wave | The New York Times | [22] |
| 2003 | Strange Centennial | The Boston Globe | |
| 2005 | Die Ahnen und die Wasser (The Anticipation of the Water) | Neue Zurcher Zeitung | [23] |
| 2005 | Hwang, Drawn and Quartered? | The Wall Street Journal | [24] |
| 2006 | Great Leadership | The Wall Street Journal | [25] |
| 2007 | Asia's Apostles | The Washington Post | [26] |
| 2007 | Globalizing Grief | The Wall Street Journal | [27] |
| 2008 | A Really Big Show: The New York Philharmonic’s Fantasia in North Korea | Harper's | [28] |
| 2009 | Notes from Another Credit Card Crisis | The New York Times | [29] |
| 2010 | The System of Defecting | Harper's | [30] |
| 2010 | North Korean Fans Attend the World Cup | Newsweek | [31] |
| 2013 | The Shared Wound in Korea | The New York Times | [32] |
| 2013 | The Dear Leader's Heinous Act | The New York Times | [33] |
| 2014 | The Good Student in North Korea | The New York Times Magazine | [34] |
| 2014 | My Time at an Elite Pyongyang Boarding School | Foreign Affairs | [35] |
| 2014 | Teaching Essay Writing in Pyongyang | Slate | [36] |
| 2014 | The Sony Hack Is North Korea's Biggest Victory in a Long Time | Slate | [37] |
| 2014 | Dear Leader's Great Victory | The National Post | [38] |
| 2014 | The Secret Shame of North Korea's Slave Workers | Newsweek | [39] |
| 2015 | What ‘The Interview’ Gets Right and Wrong about US Policy Toward North Korea | The Nation | [40] |
| 2016 | Is it Time to Intervene in North Korea? | The New Republic | [41] |
| 2016 | Republic of Disappointment. | Slate | [42] |
| 2016 | Across the Broken Bridge | The New Republic | [43] |
| 2016 | Korean Reporters Got Fired, Got Active, and Got The President | Foreign Policy | [44] |
| 2017 | The Meaning of Kim Jong Nam's Murder | The Atlantic | [45] |
| 2017 | An Extraordinary Statement from a North Korean Prince | The New Yorker | [46] |
| 2017 | Is Christian Evangelicals’ Money Helping to Prop Up North Korea’s Regime? | The Washington Post | [47] |
| 2017 | Tourism to North Korea isn’t about engagement. It’s torture porn. | The Washington Post | [48] |
| 2017 | My two messed-up countries: an immigrant’s dilemma | The Guardian | [49] |
| 2017 | South Korea Is More Worried About Donald Trump Than Kim Jong Un | Foreign Policy | [50] |
| 2018 | The Dealmaker | The New Republic | [51] |
| 2018 | Covering the North Korea Summit While Trapped in a Warehouse in Singapore | The New Yorker | [52] |
| 2018 | North Korea’s Lipstick Diplomacy | The New York Times | [53] |
| 2020 | How South Korea Lost Control of Its Coronavirus Outbreak | The New Yorker | [54] |
| 2020 | The Underground Movement Trying To Topple the North Korean Regime | The New Yorker | [55] |
Other work
| Year | Title | Publication | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Translating Poverty and Pain | The New York Times | [56] |
| 2003 | Marriage of Inconvenience? | The New York Times | [57] |
| 2003 | North Ride Home | Gourmet | |
| 2004 | Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl's Habits | The New York Times | [58] |
| 2006 | Our Affair Was One Long Lesson in How to Break Up | The New York Times | [59] |
| 2010 | Forced from Home and Yet Never Free of it | The New York Times | [60] |
| 2015 | Love Stories: Why I Flew to Beijing in Search of the Perfect Dress | Vogue | [61] |
| 2016 | Mr Rubio's Neighborhood | The New Republic | [62] |
| 2016 | The Reluctant Memoirist | The New Republic | [63] |
| 2016 | What Happened in Brisbane | The New Republic | [64] |
| 2017 | Land of Darkness | Lapham's Quarterly | [65] |
| 2017 | Public-Radio Icon John Hockenberry Accused of Harassing Female Colleagues | The Cut | [66] |
Awards
| Year | Title | Notes | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award | The Interpreter, winner | [67] |
| 2004 | Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award | The Interpreter, nominee | [68] |
| 2004 | PEN Openbook Award | The Interpreter, winner | [69] |
| 2019 | Berlin Prize | Winner | [70] |
Fellowships
| Year | Title | Ref |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Millay Colony for the Arts | [71] |
| 1998 | Ucross Foundation | [72] |
| 1999 | Ragdale Foundation | [73] |
| 1999 | The Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship | [74] |
| 2001 | MacDowell Fellowship | [75] |
| 2002 | MacDowell Fellowship | [75] |
| 2003 | MacDowell Fellowship | [75] |
| 2003 | Santa Maddalena Foundation Fellowship | [76] |
| 2005 | Ucross Foundation | [77] |
| 2006 | Guggenheim Fellowship | [78] |
| 2006 | MacDowell Fellowship | [75] |
| 2007 | Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship | [79] |
| 2010 | MacDowell Fellowship | [75] |
| 2012 | George Soros's Open Society Foundations Fellowship | [80] |
| 2014 | New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship | [81] |
| 2017 | Ferris Journalism Fellowship at Princeton University | [82] |
| 2018 | Ucross Foundation | [83] |
| 2019 | Arizona State Universitys Center on the Future of War Fellowship | [84] |
| 2019 | New America Foundation Fellowship | [84] |
| 2019 | MacDowell Fellowship | [75] |
| 2020 | Schloss Wiepersdorf Fellowship | [85] |
See also
References
External links
- Official Website
- Suki Kim on Twitter