This book will stay with me a very long time. Written by Korean author Han Kang, and beautifully translated by Deborah Smith, the focus of this book is the 1980 student uprising in Gwangju. This was a brutal episode in South Korea's recent history, in which students were viciously suppressed in the course of a peaceful demonstration. This book, which encounters the victims and the bereaved in a series of interconnecting episodes could have been sensational and bloody in tone. It's not. Unrelenting in its exposure of the feelings and emotions of those living through and after the events, it's reflective, poetic and deeply moving. The memory of the boy Dong-Ho wanders through the book, as his mother, his family and those who had any connection with him get no answers to their question'why?'. It sounds a difficult read, and in some ways it is. But its poetic use of language, its reflective tone, draws the reader in. We too become involved it the book's search for meaning in the brutal events of 1980. ( )

Very uncomfortable to read but that's exactly the point. I have a very complex process that determines what book I read next, and this happened to come up immediately after I finished a Korean history course, so I was well primed for this one. The events in the book felt very dystopic, but even my very basic knowledge of Korean history (chillingly) confirms they were not.One star off because I personally got a bit annoyed with some stylistic choices, but that could just be a me thing. Overall, not mad at it. Highly recommend. ( )

Perfect. ( )

Letto con una certa fretta di arrivare alla fine, per uscire dall’abisso di terrore e sofferenza in cui conduce. Trovo che la principale funzione di questo libro sia ricordare e far conoscere. Il resto, compresa l’apprezzabile struttura dei diversi punti di vista espressi dai singoli capitoli, passa un po’ in secondo piano. ( )

Human Acts is a powerful novel about the aftermath of the 1980 Gwangju uprising in South Korea against Chun Doo-Hwan's military government. The uprising was brutally repressed by the military, who beat, shot and killed protesting students, with thousands of civilian casualties.

Han's story starts with four people who, in the wake of the first shootings, are working in makeshift facilities to try and help the victims and take care of the bodies of the dead. They are a young man, a schoolboy and two young women. As the novel progresses Han tells the story of what happened to these people and the impact of repression on them and their colleagues and families.

This is a hair-raising, often brutal book, with detailed descriptions of killing, torture and abuse. It is not for the faint-hearted. That said, it also has beautiful poetic moments where the resilience of the victims shines through in the face of the most brutal human acts.

I'd happily give this book 5 stars, except that I found it pretty confusing. Han shifts the focus of her narrative to a new person in each chapter. Much of it is written in the second person, so the current subject of the story is just referred to as "you". A lot of the time she does not identify clearly who the current narrator is either. With some similarity in a lot of the names, I found myself flipping back and forth trying to make sense of who I was reading about now, and where I had encountered them earlier in the narrative. I don't think this should have been necessary in such a short novel. ( )