Human Acts
↳ SEE THROUGH IT

Human Acts

by Han Kang

The Gwangju massacre. Six voices. The state that buried them.

For you if

you want to understand state violence against its own citizens through the specific people it happened to

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$18 MSRP · Paperback
Reference price shown. Other editions may be available.
In May 1980 the South Korean military massacred hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in Gwangju. The government suppressed the story for decades. Han Kang — who grew up in Gwangju — reconstructs the massacre through six voices across different time periods: a boy looking for his friend's body, a factory girl who helped the uprising, a prisoner who was tortured, a publisher, a woman who survived. Each section is written in a different tense and person. The most politically important Korean novel ever written in English translation and the one that cost Han Kang the most to write.

WHERE THIS BOOK LIVES

Setting
South Korea • East Asia
Voice
Written by a South Korean author
Themes
Atrocity UnmaskedAfter EmpireWitness