In May 1980, the South Korean military fired upon students demonstrating against the closing of a university in Gwangju. The next two weeks saw militias and grieving mothers alike organizing to protest the brutality of the country’s de facto president, Chun Doo-hwan. Human Acts, the third of Han Kang‘s novels to be translated into English, centers on a single death in the weeks of violence: that of Dong-ho, a middle school student killed in the military’s last attack on civilians. Continue reading →