Anna Fifield - The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un

There is, quite simply, no journalist in any language who has done more to unearth and tell the astounding story of Kim Jong Un than Anna Fifield. The Great Successor slashes through myths to yield the first essential and vivid biography of the man and his era.

Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

Intelligent, insightful, sometimes comic, and also worrying: Anna Fifield has written a vivid, compelling, and, above all, illuminating portrait of a rogue familys rule over the worlds most reclusive nation.

General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.), director of the CIA when Kim Jong Un became leader

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

Barbara Demick, author of the best-selling Nothing to Envy

With a journalists eye for detail and with the gift of a storyteller, Anna Fifield has written the quintessential bible on Kim Jong Un. No one working to solve the North Korean puzzle should let The Great Successor sit on a bookshelf; its a must-read.

Ambassador Wendy R. Sherman, former undersecretary of state for political affairs and author of Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power, and Persistence

An important, riveting, and detailed account of the rise of Kim Jong Un. Anna Fifield, who is an intrepid reporter and a lively writer, breaks important new ground in The Great Successor. Drawing on a broad array of sources, including remarkable defector accounts, she paints a disturbing portrait of a country fueled by heady delusions of military strength; a potent, bizarre ideology; an unflinching devotion to nuclear weapons; and a disturbing addiction to crystal methamphetamine. Spoiler alert: be prepared for a lot of gore.

Evans J. R. Revere, senior advisor with the Albright Stonebridge Group and former senior state department official with fifty years of experience working on Korea

I loved reading Anna Fifield when she had the Korea beat for the Post, and now she has outdone herself with the first English-language biography of the most opaque and mysterious leader in the world. Carefully crafted from her reporting with additional research, fieldwork, and exclusive interviews with those close to and in the Kim family, The Great Successor peels back the layers to reveal Kim Jong Uns psyche and the ominous future of the country over which he presides. A must-read for the general and expert reader!

Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for International and Strategic Studies and author of The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future

The Great Successor shows how a pudgy young heir to tyrannyusing fratricide, nuclear terror, crony capitalism, and strategic flattery of a vain American presidenthas become a sure-footed Machiavelli for the twenty-first century. In this devastating portrait of the latest dictator named Kim, Anna Fifield expertly dissects North Koreas first family of despotism.

Blaine Harden, author of Escape from Camp 14: One Mans Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West

The Great Successor is a tour de force of reporting. Anna Fifield has penetrated the secrecy and myths surrounding Kim Jong Un to provide a remarkable, multilayered portrait of North Koreas youthful and enigmatic leader. The ruler depicted in this book, which is based on Fifields interviews with an impressive range of people who have had contact with Kim or experience inside his system, plus insights gleaned from her own travel as a journalist in North Korea, is not the bomb-throwing rocket man so often mocked and caricatured. Instead, Kim Jong Un comes across as smart, ruthless, diplomatically savvy, and determined to survive at all costs. An essential guide to understanding the man who could well be in charge of North Korea for decades.

Mike Chinoy, former CNN senior Asia correspondent and author of Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

To the twenty-five million people of North Korea. May you soon be free to follow your dreams.

Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,

And cry Content to that which grieves my heart,

And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,

And frame my face to all occasions

I can add colors to the chameleon,

Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murderous Machiavel to school.

Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?

Richard, in Henry VI, Part 3, Act III, Scene II

MANY OF THE ESCAPEES FROM NORTH KOREA WHO APPEAR IN this book asked me not to use their real names. They are afraid that doing so would endanger family members still in North Korea. In those cases, I used pseudonyms or no names at all.

I have used North Korean romanization and style for North Korean places and names. So Kim Jong Un not Kim Jeong-un, Ri not Lee, Paektu not Baekdu, Rodong not Nodong, and Sinmun not Shinmun.