Human Acts deals with the May 1980 Gwangju Uprising and the death of the young boy Kang Dong-ho. The novel is composed of seven chapters including the final epilogue, with each chapter tracing the passage of time from the incident in the 1980s to the present day.

May 19, 2014 · Amid a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre.

It’s May 1980, and Dong-ho is a middle-schooler living in Gwangju, a city on the southern tip of South Korea. Almost by accident, Dong-ho has become involved in the student protests against military dictator Chun Doo-hwan.

Jan 17, 2017 · From the internationally bestselling author of The Vegetarian, a “rare and astonishing” (The Observer) portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice. In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is …

Jan 21, 2017 · In Human Acts, Han Kang's novel of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising and its aftermath, people spill blood, and people brave death to donate it. With a sensitivity so...

In Human Acts, Han is fascinated and horrified by the powers of censorship and forced silence—but interestingly, Han’s most recent novel Greek Lessons, published in 2023, follows a woman whose silence originates from within.

Oct 17, 2017 · An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.

Jan 23, 2017 · In Human Acts, Han Kang examines the horrific violence of the Gwangju Uprising, a massacre of civilians in one of South Korea’s largest cities that took place in 1980.

An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.

Human Acts English UK Hardcover, Paperback Translated by Deborah Smith Gwangju, South Korea, 1980. In the wake of a viciously suppressed student uprising, a boy searches for his friend’s corpse, a consciousness searches for its abandoned body, and a brutalised country searches for a voice.