Suki Kim is a

Korean American Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian Americans ...

journalist and writer. She is the author of two books: the award-winning novel ''The Interpreter'' and a book of investigative journalism, ''Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite''. Kim is the only writer ever to have lived undercover in North Korea to conduct

immersive journalism Immersive Journalism is a form of journalism production that allows first person experience of the events or situations described in news reports and documentary film. Using 3D gaming and immersive technologies that create a sense of "being there ...

. Kim is currently a contributing editor at ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...

''.

Early life

Kim was born in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

, and immigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

with her family at thirteen. Kim is a naturalized American citizen. Kim graduated from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Kim also studied East Asian Literature at the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. She has received a Fulbright Research Grant, a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, and an

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a Grant (money), grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the wo ...

Fellowship. Kim was also a Ferris Journalism Fellow at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, where she was a visiting lecturer.

Work

The Interpreter

Kim's debut novel, ''The Interpreter'', published by

Farrar, Straus & Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...

, is a murder mystery about a young Korean-American woman, Suzy Park, living in New York City and searching for answers as to why her shopkeeper parents were murdered. Kim took a short term job as an interpreter in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

when working on the novel to look into the life of an interpreter. The book received positive critic reviews and won several awards. ''The Interpreter'' was translated into Dutch, French, Korean, Italian, and Japanese.

Visits to North Korea and second book

Kim visited North Korea in February 2002 to participate in the 60th birthday celebration of

Kim Jong-il Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...

. She documented this experience in a February 2003 cover essay for ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

.'' Kim accompanied the

New York Philharmonic The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is ...

in February 2008, when they traveled to

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populatio ...

for the historical cultural visit to North Korea from the United States. Her article, "A Really Big Show: The New York Philharmonic's fantasia in North Korea," was published in ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'' in December 2008. Her second book, ''Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite'', is a work of investigative journalism about her three and a half months in Pyongyang, where she taught English at the

Pyongyang University of Science and Technology Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) is North Korea's first privately funded university. It is founded, operated, and partly funded by associations and people outside the country. PUST was jointly planned and constructed by forc ...

in 2011. The book has resulted in some controversy, with reviewers claiming that Kim brought harm on the students she wrote about, and that she caused tensions between the university and the North Korean government. The university staff accused Kim of making false claims about them. However, Kim addressed her critics in a June 2016 essay in ''

''. Kim mentioned the shortcomings of labelling her second book as a memoir and the irony in reviewers dismissing this work for containing the components typically praised in investigative journalism. Kim also described how racism and sexism influenced public views on her expertise. Her publisher subsequently removed the label "memoir" from the cover of ''Without You, There Is No Us.''

Latest work

In 2017, Suki Kim broke a sexual harassment scandal against

John Hockenberry John Charles Hockenberry (born June 4, 1956) is an American journalist and author. He has reported from all over the world, on a wide variety of stories in several mediums for more than three decades. He has written dozens of magazine and newsp ...

WNYC WNYC is the trademark and a set of call letters shared by WNYC (AM) and WNYC-FM, a pair of nonprofit, noncommercial, public radio stations located in New York City. WNYC is owned by New York Public Radio (NYPR), a nonprofit organization that di ...

in her article in The Cut. Her investigation led to the firing of two longterm WNYC hosts,

Leonard Lopate Leonard Lopate (born September 23, 1940) is an American radio personality. He is the host of the radio talk show ''Leonard Lopate at Large'', broadcast on WBAI, and the former host of the public radio talk show ''The Leonard Lopate Show'', broad ...

and Jonathan Schwartz, as well as the eventual resignation of its CEO, Laura Walker, and Chief Content officer, Dean Cappello. Her article was voted as the Best Investigative Reporting of 2017 by Longreads. In 2020, Kim published an investigative feature in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' on

Free Joseon Free Joseon (; formerly known as Cheollima Civil Defense, formally styled as The Provisional Government of Free Joseon) is a North Korean activist group and self-proclaimed "government in exile" established on 4 March 2017. It has been noted for ...

, a group that has declared itself a provisional government for North Korea, and she was the first to interview the group's leader Adrian Hong while he was on the run from the Department of Justice.

Bibliography

Books

Anthologies

Essays and op-eds

About North Korea and South Korea

Other work

Awards

Fellowships

References

External links

Official Website
* Suki Kim o
Twitter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Suki Living people 1970 births American writers of Korean descent South Korean emigrants to the United States Barnard College alumni People from Seoul Gwangsan Kim clan 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American memoirists Writers from New York City American women memoirists