“Provocative and fascinating, Korean Messiah casts fresh light on North Korea. Jonathan Cheng shows how this country, more hostile to religion than any in the world, was built on a bedrock of Christianity by its founder Kim Il Sung, who discarded the evangelical faith of his family and harnessed its power to create a cult of personality that has endured into the third generation. It’s a contrarian approach to North Korea that is nonetheless convincingly argued and meticulously documented.” —Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
“How do personality cults take hold? What happens when leaders mix politics and faith to demand immense sacrifices? Jonathan Cheng’s magnificent tale poses questions about the world far beyond North Korea. This utterly eye-opening history deciphers a defining pattern of global politics in the 21st century.”—Evan Osnos, New Yorker staff writer, National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
“Korean Messiah is a long-overdue and important addition to our understanding of contemporary North Korea. Cheng expertly fills in another missing piece of the DPRK puzzle.”
—Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son
“Journalists have been telling the same stories about North Korea for decades, but with Korean Messiah, Jonathan Cheng has done something remarkable: Shown us how Kim Il Sung weaponized his Christian upbringing in the ‘Jerusalem of the East’ to gain power and hold onto it despite the odds. This is important reading for understanding how the North Korean regime has managed to persist.” —Anna Fifield, Asia-Pacific editor at The Washington Post and author of The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un
“Jonathan Cheng illuminates an important but little understood layer of the mystery of North Korea: how the ruling Kim family drew from Christianity to create one of the most repressive regimes in modern history. This is a fascinating account of the lost community of Presbyterian missionaries from America who transformed Pyongyang into a city known back then as the ‘Jerusalem of the East,’ and their lasting impact on North Korea even as the regime seeks to stamp out Christianity from everyday life today.” —Jean H. Lee, former Pyongyang bureau chief at the Associated Press
“This is an extraordinary book. Jonathan Cheng analyses in minute detail the influence on the young Kim Il Sung of the staunchly Christian family in which he grew up, the profound impact of this upbringing on the way that he and his successors have ruled North Korea since, and the efforts of North Korean propagandists to strip these influences from the official narrative. He carefully dissects the religious roots of many of North Korea’s current practices and shows why, having stolen so much from Christianity, the regime is so anxious to prevent the faith itself from reestablishing a presence in North Korea. This is a very valuable contribution to our understanding of this deeply puzzling country.” —John Everard, former UK ambassador to North Korea
“Korean Messiah is truly a revelation for understanding one of the most opaque, and dangerous, regimes on the planet. Jonathan Cheng’s indefatigable research digs up the Christian roots of the dynasty forged by Kim Il Sung and exposes the curious ways in which a missionary mindset shapes the country under his grandson, Kim Jong Un. Fusing the rigor of a historian with the style of a journalist, Korean Messiah tells the unlikely story of how Christianity accidentally shaped a communist dictatorship.” —John Delury, Asia Society senior fellow, coauthor of Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century
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