Available to book
Suki Kim
National Security
Geopolitics
Diplomacy
Understand authoritarian regimes and investigative journalism with Suki Kim, North Korea undercover reporter and bestselling author. Suki works with organizations to decode propaganda, media literacy, and closed societies, delivering insights as a Guggenheim Fellow, PEN Award winner, and TED speaker.
Author
Suki Kim is one of the few writers to have gone undercover in North Korea, turning years of firsthand access into journalism that reshapes how the world understands the country's most hidden society. Kim is the author of the New York Times bestseller Without You, There Is No Us, a PEN Open Book Award winner, and a Guggenheim fellow. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's, and The New York Review of Books, and she has spoken on stages from TED to the Sydney Opera House. Kim spent six months living in Pyongyang as a teacher to the sons of North Korea's elite, recording her observations in secret on USB sticks. That experience, combined with five earlier visits over a decade, gives her a granular understanding of daily life inside the regime. Her reporting moves beyond headlines and speculation, offering audiences a human-scale portrait of a society built on total control. She makes the abstract concrete, explaining how propaganda, surveillance, and isolation shape ordinary people. Audiences leave Kim's talks with a clearer picture of how authoritarian systems sustain themselves, practical frameworks for evaluating media coverage of closed societies, and a deeper appreciation for the risks involved in investigative journalism. Book Suki Kim to bring your audience face to face with a story no one else can tell.
Suki Kim's six months undercover in Pyongyang give her unmatched access to how authoritarian systems operate from the inside. Her firsthand reporting cuts through speculation to show how propaganda and control shape behaviour at scale. She'll equip teams with sharper frameworks for evaluating closed societies and understanding power structures that sustain themselves through information control.
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frequently asked questions
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Email suki.kim@getapeptalk.com or call PepTalk on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US), and one of our speaker agents will contact you within hours to confirm Suki's availability and fees. If you can, please include your budget upfront – it helps us fast-track your request. It’s also helpful to know the date, format (virtual or in-person), location, and a bit about your audience.
Suki Kim draws on six months of covert fieldwork inside Pyongyang — where she recorded observations in secret on USB sticks while posing as a teacher — alongside five earlier visits spanning a decade, to build talks grounded in firsthand ethnographic detail rather than secondhand analysis.
Suki Kim speaks on North Korean society, authoritarian systems, investigative journalism, and the role of propaganda and surveillance in closed regimes. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Without You, There Is No Us, a PEN Open Book Award winner and Guggenheim fellow, whose account draws on six months living undercover in Pyongyang and five earlier visits to the country over a decade.
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