‘Who was Kim Jong-un’s mother?’: Journalist searches for answers in new book

There’s not much publicly known about the mother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. She wasn’t part of the ruling Kim family’s sacred revolutionary bloodline. She rarely appeared in state media. And then, she vanished.

Who was Ko Yong-hui — and what happened to her?

A new book by veteran Japanese journalist Yoji Gomi, “Ko Yong-hui: The Zainichi Korean Who Became Kim Jong-un’s Mother” (translated), attempts to answer that question. Drawing on more than a decade of reporting and rare interviews with Ko’s surviving relatives in Japan, Gomi reconstructs the life of a woman North Korea seems determined to erase — despite her intimate role in shaping the current regime from behind the scenes.

“She died a lonely death because of the North Korean regime,” Gomi said in an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo in Tokyo on June 20, the day of the book’s release.

A former editorial writer for the Tokyo Shimbun, he is best known for his interviews with Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s estranged half brother who was assassinated in Malaysia in 2017.

Gomi traces Ko’s erasure to her origins. Born in Japan, she did not belong to the revolutionary Paektu bloodline, a central pillar in North Korea’s mythologized leadership narrative. That alone made her an uncomfortable figure in a regime obsessed with purity of lineage.

His investigation into Ko began with a simple question: Who was Kim Jong-un’s mother?

It led him to Osaka’s Tsuruhashi neighborhood, long home to Japan’s Korean diaspora, where Ko was born in 1952. Gomi interviewed people who had known her, including her older brother, to piece together her early life.

At the age of 10, she left for North Korea with her father, Ko Gyeong-taek. Gomi notes that the elder Ko had a history of smuggling goods between South Korea and Japan and was once arrested in Korea. He eventually chose to resettle in the North after facing deportation from Japan.

Little is known about Ko’s early years in North Korea. But by 1972, at just 20 years old, she had earned the title of “Merited Actress” and joined the Mansudae Art Troupe. It was there that she came to the attention of Kim Jong-il. After gaining his favor, she traveled to Japan as part of the troupe.

During one of those visits, Ko’s Japanese relatives attempted to reconnect with her but were turned away. According to Gomi, one cousin confronted her, asking why she was ignoring them. “You must be mistaken,” she reportedly replied.

Her rejection of her family, Gomi suggests, speaks to the pressure she faced to disavow her identity as a Zainichi Korean — a background difficult to reconcile with her role as consort to the “supreme dignity.”

The book includes newly released photographs of Ko with her children — Kim Jong-chol, Kim Jong-un and Kim Yo-jong — taken during overseas trips, as well as an image used in a forged passport reportedly created for a trip to Japan. Some accounts, Gomi writes, claim that Ko, who lived in Japan until the age of 10, taught Kim Jong-un Japanese songs and language.

Ko’s final years were marked by illness and exile. She was diagnosed with breast cancer around 1997 but delayed surgery, reportedly due to tensions surrounding succession within the regime.

By the time she sought treatment in Paris in 2004, it was too late. She died in the French capital at the age of 51.

A previously unpublished photo from that period, now featured in the book, shows her in a wheelchair, wearing dark sunglasses and a white hat.

Her younger sister, Ko Yong-suk — who helped raise the children in Pyongyang and was reportedly referred to as “Mom” by them — once applied for a U.S. visa under Ko’s name in an effort to arrange medical treatment, Gomi said. The request was denied.

Today, Gomi estimates that about 50 of Kim Jong-un’s relatives still live in Japan.

“I hope this book prompts North Korea to reconsider its relationship with Japan,” he said.

BY KIM HYUN-YE [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]