A Western capitalist recounts his
ventures and adventures in the ‘hermit kingdom’:
a myth-breaking chronicle of the
realities of 21st Century life and business in the most
misunderstood of countries.
Felix
Abt lived and worked in North Korea from 2002 to 2009. His anomalous position
as a self-confessed capitalist in the most stringent communist country on the
planet led to a multitude of fascinating, unexpected and even bizarre
experiences. He has captured all this in his intriguing book A
Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom. It
reveals “otherwise unavailable details
and unique insights”[1] into this most secretive of countries and its
people. No one can read this acutely observed account without having many of
their preconceptions turned on their heads.
Most recent Western publications have relentlessly vilified North Korea,
focusing on the horrific years of the 1990s when natural disasters and mass
starvation ravaged the country, or on gruesome stories from defectors and
former concentration camps inmates. But Felix Abt paints a rather
different picture of a country emerging from these horrors, a nation fiercely proud
and determinedly self-reliant. It is a country in the throes of change and he
was not only witness to, but also participated in and initiated many
extraordinary and surprising firsts.
He saw the first mini-skirts
in North Korea, ‘Happy Meals’, rock and roll, Hello Kitty and Mickey Mouse. Perhaps
more significantly, he was closely involved in setting up the first foreign chamber
of commerce in the country, the first business school, a pharmaceutical company
that was the first North Korean enterprise to win foreign contracts in
competitive bidding, a joint venture software company that was the first to
export award winning software. His tales of these and many other remarkable
ventures are compelling reading, especially against a background of communist
bureaucracy and intransigence, and strangulating Western embargoes.
Ruediger Frank, economics
professor at the University of Vienna and proclaimed North Korea expert
describes A Capitalist in North Korea
as a “must-read” and says, “This book challenges many of our views of
an allegedly isolated and static country”.
Felix Abt is a Swiss-born
businessman who has lived and
worked as a senior executive on behalf of multinational groups and smaller
enterprises in nine countries on three continents. In his seven years in North
Korea he was given unprecedented access to the country. He interviewed hundreds
of Koreans from high-ranking officials to ordinary workers and felt compelled
to give the world a true picture of a society that is largely misunderstood, misrepresented
and is changing.
[1] Bradley
K.Martin - author of Under the Loving
Care Of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty and Asia news
correspondent.
###
Contact for photos and interviews: Philip Nguyen
Mobile Phone: ++84 1121012154556
Email: info
a-capitalist-in-north-korea.com
Website: www.a-capitalist-in-north-korea.com
Author’s photo & video gallery: www.northkoreacapitalist.tumblr.com
Author interview - HERE
Amazon - HERE
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