I just read the MOST interesting book---A Corpse in the Koryo--a mystery set in North Korea, written by a Western intelligence officer with many years of experience in Asia and Korea. It must be one of the very few English language novels written about North Korea by someone with rich knowledge about it. It sounds very much the way that non-fiction sources have described the country.
"My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved;I have been given much and I have given something in return...Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and an adventure." O. Sacks