Suh, Dae-Sook, 1931-2022

Suh Dae-sook (22 November 1931 – 13 September 2022) was a South Korean professor emeritus of political science and a director of the Centre for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii. Suh was born in what is now North Korea, and defected to the South in 1946. He worked as an interpreter during the Korean War, and left to study abroad in the United States at Texas Christian University in 1952. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 1964 with a thesis Korean Communism and the rise of Kim. He also later worked as a researcher there. In 1989, he was a visiting professor at Seoul National University. From 1999 to 2000, he worked as the Yongjae Distinguished Professor at Yonsei University. He was best known for the books Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader, published by Columbia University Press and considered the best work on the early life of Kim Il Sung, and The Korean Communist Movement. His works have been published or translated in English, Korean, Russian, and German.