Available to book
Suki Kim
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.
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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To book Suki Kim, 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 speaking fee. 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 about your audience.
No. PepTalk adds no booking fee, so you pay the speaker's fee and nothing beyond it. The service, from shortlist through to contracts and event-day logistics, is included. For repeat or multi-event bookings, PepTalk can agree preferential rates with your procurement team.
Share your event date, audience, format, objectives and budget, and PepTalk sends a hand-picked shortlist within 24 hours. Each suggestion comes with a profile, a fee and a recommendation on the strongest fit. Once you choose, PepTalk handles contracts, travel and logistics through to event day.
The typical fee range is the speaker's standard in-person fee in their home market, shown in their local currency. It moves with format, location, date and session length: virtual sessions and shorter slots usually cost less, while international travel and peak dates cost more. Send your brief to PepTalk and the team will confirm the exact fee in your currency.
Not all of them, and it makes no difference to your booking. PepTalk's network of 15,000+ speakers covers talent the team works with directly alongside speakers represented by agents and agencies worldwide. PepTalk approaches the speaker, negotiates the fee and handles contracting either way.
Three to six months ahead is comfortable for most events, and 12 months is better for large conferences, peak-season dates or one specific in-demand speaker. Shorter timelines are workable, and PepTalk regularly fills last-minute and replacement bookings within days. Availability is the constraint, so get in touch as soon as you have a date.
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