Miss Kathi

Name: Miss Kathi
Author: https://www.simonandschuster.net/authors/Kathi-Zellweger/265182952
ISBN: 9798895656723

Saving Lives in North Korea

By Kathi Zellweger and Mike Chinoy

LIST PRICE $15.99

Rave and Reviews

About The Book

The remarkable story of Swiss aid worker Kathi Zellweger, whose history of engagement with a secretive, isolated North Korea over nearly three decades is unprecedented in its scope, access, and humanitarian impact.

One of the first book-length accounts in English by an aid worker operating on the ground in North Korea, Miss Kathi chronicles the story of a woman who has lived out her commitment to the poor and most vulnerable—undaunted by the tensions and threat of conflict perpetually looming over the Korean peninsula.

For many North Koreans, Kathi Zellweger—a native of Switzerland—was the first foreigner they had ever met or even seen. Playing a central role in the early years of international relief efforts in North Korea was a lonely job, as Kathi addressed the humanitarian needs of a suffering people largely ignored by the world because of their citizenship. She befriended local doctors, nurses, and caregivers; negotiated with suspicious government officials; overcame international doubts about the diversion of relief supplies to the military; and, over a period of years, spearheaded an effort that provided food, medicine, and development aid. Ultimately, her efforts saved the lives of thousands of people—most of them children.

As one official in Pyongyang emotionally declared to her during a visit in the late 1990s, even though she was in no way a missionary, “Miss Kathi—you are the Mother Teresa of North Korea!”

About The Authors

Kathi Zellweger

Kathi Zellweger is a senior aid manager with over thirty years of field experience in Hong Kong, China, and North Korea. She was based in Pyongyang for five years (2006–2011) as the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), an office of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before joining SDC, from 1978 to 2006, Zellweger worked in a senior post for the Catholic Agency Caritas in Hong Kong, where she played a key role in pioneering Caritas’s involvement in China and North Korea.

She also managed the Hong Kong–based KorAid Limited, a nonprofit she established in 2015 to focus on serving children in institutions and people with disabilities in North Korea. Zellweger is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University in California. She holds a master’s degree in international administration from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Mike Chinoy

Mike Chinoy is a nonresident scholar at the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego. Previously, he was a nonresident senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute. Before joining USC, he spent twenty-four years as a foreign correspondent for CNN. He was the network’s first bureau chief in Beijing, bureau chief in Hong Kong, and senior Asia correspondent. He also worked for CBS News and NBC News in Hong Kong.

Chinoy won Emmy, DuPont, Peabody, and ACE awards for his coverage of China, and also made seventeen trips to North Korea. After leaving CNN, he was a senior fellow at the Los Angeles–based Pacific Council on International Policy, focusing on security issues in North Korea, China, and Northeast Asia before joining the USC US-China Institute. He is the author of five other books. He has an MS degree from Columbia and a BA from Yale.

Product Details

Publisher: Post Hill Press (September 1, 2026)
Length: 464 pages
ISBN13: 9798895656723

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Raves and Reviews

“Over multiple decades, Kathi Zellweger had access to North Korea that journalists—and most aid workers—can only dream of. This heartfelt and insightful memoir shows how one extraordinary humanitarian improved countless North Korean lives. A timely reminder that the people should not be punished for the actions of their leaders—and that one person really can make a difference.”

– Anna Fifield, former Asia editor for the Washington Post, author of The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un

“Kathi Zellweger has an extraordinary story to tell. This book is a gift to the field of North Korea studies, and anyone who wants to get an unbiased, unvarnished, yet compassionate view of life for ‘average’ Koreans…a memoir that is as fascinating as it is readable.”

– John Delury, Senior Fellow, Asia Society, co-author of Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-first Century

“I'm in awe of Miss Kathi. This captivating book provides an unvarnished and unrivaled ground truth account of heartbreak, and heroics in the world's least understood nation: North Korea.”

– Eason Jordan, former CNN chief news executive

“Miss Kathi provides an unprecedented look inside the real North Korea as seen by Kathi, a humanitarian worker, who through her tireless efforts provided help and hope to a people whose government had failed them.”

– Siegfried Hecker, former director, Los Alamos National Laboratory, professor emeritus, Stanford University

“Nobody, but nobody, knows North Korea like Kathi Zellweger, and the memoir of this Swiss aid official penetrates this elusive realm like no other. Ably co-written with Mike Chinoy, no slouch himself when it comes to this country, the book brings out in equal parts the geopolitics, the humanity and even the humor of life inside North Korea.”

– Barbara Demick, former Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau chief and author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins

“The story of Kathi Zellweger's remarkable work in North Korea is comprehensive, practical, and offers invaluable insights for anyone interested in that country. A crucial resource and a compelling read.”

– Jerome Sauvage, former UN Resident Coordinator and United Nations Development Program Representative in the DPRK