For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous. Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings - all the human actions we think of as essential to a character - had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state.
I thought that, with so much current attention focused on the topic of North Korea, I might share what I think are three books which cast a rare light on the elusive realm of North Korea.
The urge to create a fictional narrative is a mysterious one, and when an idea comes, the writer's sense of what a story wants to be is only vaguely visible through the penumbra of inspiration.
Life brings what it brings. I might be young but I've learnt this: prepare for each blind corner with your strongest shoulder dropped, ready to smash through whatever is thrown at you next. Once the dust clears you will be standing tall, a champion, a victor. NOTHING will be able to knock you down once you've taken the biggest hits this life has to offer, so come on life, BRING IT!
Imagine a world in which no writer has written a literary novel in sixty years. Imagine a place where not a single person has read a book that is truly about the character at its center.