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Han begins with a room of unclaimed corpses. South Korea has a dark history. In May 1980, in response to a coup, university students and young female factory workers joined to inspire an uprising in Gwangju, a university town. The government responded with an intentionally brutal crackdown and massacre. Han, a born in Gwangju, is uncharacteristically direct here, and brings us to the crackdown and to its long aftermath. It‘s an important book.

Drawing from true events, this book smacks the reader in the face with graphic brutality from the word go and shows how that violence reverberates across the lives of those involved for decades. I knew nothing about this event from 1980 and I‘m glad I read this, though it wasn‘t an easy read. Phenomenal book.

Tough day for Pepper. Two weeks of this thing on her head. Meanwhile I‘ve started another Han Kang novel.

Han had declined to hold a press conference....

Brutality and intense grief. A wavering time line. A hard read for such a short novel.

Tuesday A Master of Djinn was my favorite book of the month. Then I read Han‘s absolutely devastating Human Acts & was blown away by how powerfully she wrote a story about the Gwangju student uprising & the human capacity, on an individual & state level, for violence & brutality. That, resilience & the human spirit. Excellent, horrific & heartbreaking. Some great reading, 20 books total, in November. My favs were a real mix.

“I never let myself forget that every single person I meet is a member of this human race.”

#OutAndAbout
#ReadingOnTheTrain

This book is no easy read. No feel good movie. It addresses a slaughter that long has been silenced. Apparently, not even fellow Koreans knew about it. Now the time has finally come to tell the truth.

And Han Kang does this in an astonishing way. She switches between narrators and uses different narrative techniques. Those make it sometimes hard to read the book, but this way Kang shows us what an impact incidents like these can have.

"Romance is a Bonus Book". ??? the bookshop sets.

I absolutely love Han Kang.
I recommend everything she reads and preorder everything of hers that gets translated.
#womenintranslation
#alphabetgame #letterH
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I always say that a good story makes a book captivating.
But I have to admit that I prefer a book that makes you feel something (irrespective of the feeling - sadness, happyness, fear etc) through somthing else than just a story. And this book does exactly that - it creates such a strong atmosphere and it makes you have strong feelings through powerful descriptions (starting from a real, tragic event). Totally my kind of book!

“It‘s sunny over there, Mum, and there‘s lots of flowers, too. Why are we walking in the dark, let‘s go over there, where the flowers are blooming.”

- 4⭐️

The story picks up in the immediate aftermath of the Gwangju Massacre and switches pov while jumping through time to show the lasting impact of the tragedy and the rooting out of those seen as complicit in the uprising. Kang paints a vivid picture that is slightly less impactful because of the minimal length of the book combined with switching POV‘s. Well worth a read especially if this bit of history is unknown to you.

This book is stunning. It's haunting, really. And it's based on a true story. This author is sort of indescribable.

#BookSpinBingo square 4
@TheAromaofBooks

Beautifully written, but harrowing to read. I didn't realize how young many of the victims of the Gwangju Uprising were, and what the prisoners suffered afterwards. So glad I have Kim's The Vegetarian at home. I will definitely read it soon.

This book is devastating. Rightfully so, considering the subject matter.

Only 40some pages in but this one's gonna be heartbreaking.

This is a sad novel about the uprising in Gwangju, South Korea in which several characters were killed and others dealt with the burden of living. This is a part of South Korean history which I hadn‘t heard about previously. This was an engaging read that was very different from Kang‘s The Vegetarian.

This is not an easy book to read, it's heavily detailed with the brutality that people suffered in a civilian uprising in Korea.. this is a very very important book that should not be missed.

I love Han Kang‘s writing in the tagged book and also in The Vegetarian.

Also loved the Japanese thriller Out by Natsuo Kirino

#IntegrateYourShelf

Difficult read. I really struggled to keep reading... Its revealing the hardships of South Korea‘s history but I did not know certain details that entailed in the Gwangju Massacre. What war can bring. What humans can do to other humans. I enjoyed how the story was written in the perspectives and how they all connected. It‘s something to learn about.

Such a hard book to read, but necessary.

💔 shattered glass of humans.

📚 Human Acts
✍️ Han Kang ❤️
🍿Hellboy (the Guillermo del Toro one only of course)
📺 House
🎤 Whitney Houston
🎶He Needs Me (Nina Simone)

#manicmonday #letterH thank you @JoScho

A very difficult book to read, but beautifully written. It covers the Gwangju massacre in South Korea in 1980 (a subject I knew nothing about) so it is necessarily brutal and graphic.

#bookspin #doublespin
#booked2020 #panasianauthor

Thanks for sending this to me Cindy, quite a few months ago now!

This book is heartbreaking and brutal and was a bit much for me at the moment. It tells the story of the Gwangju massacre in 1980 in South Korea. Each chapter is told from a different persons perspective both dead and living. The devastation to so many from this event is sobering, an event that I knew little about.
#Bookspin
@TheAromaofBooks

I haven‘t posted in a while. Having a newborn really takes a lot out of you 😆 I am now ready and eager to once again reconnect with the Litsy community! 😊

From the author of The Vegetarian, Human Acts tells the story of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in S. Korea from the point of view of different individuals involved as well as the inhumane suffering they experienced at the hands of the military. Worth a read despite its heavy theme (which won't help you much these days) and more socially significant and relatable than The Vegetarian.

Heard so much about this book and I loved The Vegetarian so I had to get this for an upcoming business trip! Love this cover! #HanKang #koreanauthor #asianauthor #asianlit

"Some memories never heal. Rather than fading with the passage of time, those memories become the only things that are left behind when all else is abraded."

Human Acts is the story of the Gwanju Uprising in South Korea in 1980. The author examines the idea that time heals all wounds, and offers another possibility - that time, instead, turns memories into ghosts, which stay with us for a lifetime.

#booked2020 #liveandlearn

#HumanNature #Movember @Cinfhen

#covercrush #7days7covers #day4

@ephemeralwaltz have you been tagged yet? Do you want to join? 7 covers in 7 days, no explanation needed?

#Human #AyUpAugust @squirrelbrain @Cinfhen

New book. Slow start getting off of how much I adored Queenie.

"Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel?" This is the central theme of this study of human brutality. Difficult to read in the vividness of the violence but beautiful in it's writing. As I read this I thought of various genocides around the world and that central question asked by Han Kang. 4 ?

#WITmonth hope to finish this tonight during the #reversereadathon.

Currently reading

This book packs a whollop right from the beginning, wow.
My current read Human Acts by Han King
Thank you @Itchyfeetreader for this book 💖📚🙏

#femaleauthors #readingmyownbooks

Hearing Han Kang read in Korean was the highlight of my weekend! Check out my previous post 😋😋

Guess who asked Han Kang to please sign her books in Korean? Me! 😍
I had the incredible opportunity to hear her talk this evening and she read passages in Korean from Human Acts and she talked about her perspective when writing and everything about her is lovely and I am fangirling

Unflinchingly brutal accounts of different people affected by the South Korean Gwangju uprising in 1980. This short novel brings us several different voices of students, of friends, of mothers, of bystanders who bore witness to this horrific event. Some of the description may be hard to stomach but the writing is so honest and beuatiful you will keep reading.

#TwinkyToles & #TookeyToles aren‘t fans of the cold, which is why they are snuggled up with me while I read. It‘s supposed to feel like -38°F out there and this is the warmest part of the day. ? ??‍♀️

#catsoflitsy #littenkitten #TnT #TolesBrats #CatMomProblems #winterreading #Booked2019 #newtomeauthor #diversebooks #diverseauthors #femaleauthor

#diversebooks #diverseauthors #femaleauthors

#Booked2019 #NewToMeAuthor #Winter

I reached page 115 on Alias Grace, which means I have 449 pages to go. Woohoo... 😆

Now I‘m moving on to this one on this cold Sunday evening. It‘ll probably be my last read for the #24B4Monday #readathon. I‘m at the 12 hours and 52 minutes mark. Momo is taking a nap. 🐶💤 💤

#LitsyLovesLibraries #diversebooks #diverseauthor #MomoToles #TolesBrats #Dogsoflitsy

Huh. I never thought of it that way, but that is exactly how I feel about summer.

I understand that there was some controversy regarding the translation of Han Kang‘s The Vegetarian, and I see that this book was translated by the same person. I don‘t know if the translation is faithful or not, but the story is beautifully told. Another gorgeous cover.

My top ten books that have really stayed with me this year - the above 8 plus Kafka on the Shore and Middlesex. I think I had a bit of a historical fixation 😍
Man, there were a lot of good books in my life this year! 2019 my aim is to catch up on some SFF classics so we‘ll see if that changes the flavour of my favourites list for 2019

Human Acts is agonizing to read, which is fitting given that it's subject is repression in South Korea. It's about the trauma that state violence inflicts on communities. Not for the faint of heart.