Pyongyang - A Journey in North Korea

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Pyongyang (published in English as Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea) is a black and white graphic novel by the Canadian Québécois author Guy Delisle, published in 2004.
Pyongyang documents Delisle's experiences in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, where he stayed for two months. Acting as the liaison between a French animation producing company and the SEK Studio (Scientific Educational Korea) company, he struggles with the difficulties of outsourcing and the bureaucracy of the totalitarian closed state. Delisle arrives in Pyongyang, bringing, in addition to the items that he was authorized to bring into the country, a copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, that he judged appropriate for a totalitarian state, CDs of Aphex Twin and reggae, and presents like Gitanes cigarettes and Hennessy brandy. Delisle is surprised by things such as reverse walking, the absence of disabled and elderly people, North Korean music propaganda, the cult of personality for past leader Kim Il-Sung and current leader Kim Jong-Il, the required presence of his translator and guide, nearly-expired water from the South, Coca-Cola and kimjongilias. He also notes the extreme level of apparent brainwashing in the citizens of Pyongyang. When questioned regarding the lack of disabled people in Pyongyang, his guide asserts, and seems to genuinely believe, that North Korea has no disabled, and that the children of the "Korean race" are all born healthy, strong and intelligent... Delisle does not expect to return to North Korea, writing, "I don't think I would be welcome there anymore.

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