North Korean literature
Reading is a popular pastime in North Korea, where literacy and books enjoy a high cultural standing, elevated by the regime's efforts to disseminate propaganda as texts. Because of this, writers are held in high prestige. The division of Korea following the Second World War led to a considerable cross-border movement, which included writers moving from North to South or from South to North. North Korea's subsequent literary tradition was shaped and controlled by the State. The "Guidelines for Juche Literature", published by the official (), emphasised that literature must extoll the country's leader, Kim Il Sung, and, later, Kim Jong Il. Only members of the Writers' Alliance are authorised to have their works published. History Background Russian, and later Soviet, literature were popular in pre-liberation North Korea. Koreans viewed Russian literature very differently from Western audiences, searching for Confucian undertones of social engineering. While Westerners appreciated works like Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace, Koreans mostly ignored these works but enjoyed his works on religion and moral treatises. Of Soviet writers, Maxim Gorky in particular was popular. 20th century The foundations of socialist North Korean literature were laid in the period between 1945 and 1960s, when North