Going undercover in North Korea is not something that many people manage to do. One woman not only did it, but lived to tell the tale.

Suki Kim is the author of Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite.

She was born in South Korea and later moved to America, where she became a journalist. She first went to North Korea in 2002, and has since been there five times.

Suki was intrigued by the fact that a tenth of North Korea's population had died as a result of famine in the 1990s, and her reason for going undercover was "to try to uncover the truth of the place, which is nearly impossible."

"This is one country where journalism has failed, as human rights activism has failed."

Suki heard about a group of evangelical Christians who were setting up a university in North Korea, and she managed to pass herself off as one of them. She taught the sons of the country's elite.

She says, "There were computer majors who didn't even know what the internet was. They had idea about the rest of the world."

She describes the students as "physically healthy but emotionally stunted."

Suki says she did live in fear: "There's a reason why you don't go undercover in North Korea. It's never been done."

Suki Kim will be speaking at the Dalkey Book Festival tomorrow at 2.30pm.