Human Acts

A serene look at the violence of history. The book begins with the Gwangju massacre, which took place in 1980, when the South Korean army brutally suppressed a student uprising.

The fragmented, polyphonic narrative follows several voices: that of a boy who died, that of a censored publisher, and that of a mother searching for her son's body. A portrait in which pain is personal and indivisible. Han Kang helps us understand how horror seeps into generations, words, and silence.

“How is it possible that the human body, made of such fragile flesh, can contain so much pain?”

The answer never comes.

Han Kang was born in 1970 in Gwangju, the city where the events that inspired the novel took place. She is one of South Korea's most renowned writers and the author of works such as The Vegetarian and Greek Lessons. Her writing, at once lyrical and disciplined, questions the relationship between body, violence, and memory. Nobel Prize in 2024.