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THE BOOK BEHIND THE HIT Route 5 DOCUMENTARY

A glimpse of life inside the world’s most secretive country, as told by Britain’s best-loved travel writer.

IN-MAY 2018, former Monty Python stalwart and intrepid globetrotter Michael Palin spent two weeks in the notoriously secretive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a cut-off land without internet or phone sign, where in fact the countryside has barely moved beyond a centuries-old peasant economy but where the towns about North Korea Journal have gleaming skyscrapers and luxurious underground train stations. His producing documentary for Channel 5 was broadly acclaimed.

Now he stocks his day-by-day journal of his visit, in which he describes not merely what he found – and his fleeting sights of what the authorities didn’t want him to see – but recounts the conversations he had with the country’s inhabitants, discussions candidly approximately his encounters with officialdom, and information his musings in regards to a land wholly unlike any other he has ever visited – one which inspires fascination and fear in equal measure.

Created with Palin’s brand warmth and wit, and illustrated with beautiful colour photographs throughout, the journal offers a rare insight into the North Korea in back of the headlines.