The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un

by Anna Fifield

Rodman delivered a long and rambling toast, which concluded, “Marshal, your father and your grandfather did some fucked-up shit. But you, you’re trying to make a change, and I love you for that.”

The official slogans rolled out for the event sounded just as strange in Korean as they did in the English-language versions distributed by North Korea’s news agency. “Make the whole country seethe with a high-pitched campaign for producing greenhouse vegetables!” “Let’s give a decisive solution to the problem of consumer goods!” “Let’s dynamically wage this year’s general advance in the same spirit as shown in succeeding in the H-bomb test!”