Scan barcode
A review by nashwa017
Human Acts by Han Kang
4.0
I think this one took me well over two weeks to get through because of its sheer intensity and the violence on the page. The exploration of grief, torture and tragedy made it a hard one to absorb and therefore, I only read a few pages at a time.
The story is set in Gwangju, South Korea in 1980 in light of a military takeover and highlights how brutally the student uprising was suppressed. While reading this book, I couldn’t get a break from the violence but with different POVs, the kind of violence and terror each person faced was different in nature but equally disturbing on the page.
Stories of police brutality are not unfamiliar to us. We see them on the news all the time, and the story reminded me very much of what’s happening in Myanmar right now.
I’ve now read two of Han Kang’s books, the other one being The Vegetarian and out of the two, I prefer this one.
The story is set in Gwangju, South Korea in 1980 in light of a military takeover and highlights how brutally the student uprising was suppressed. While reading this book, I couldn’t get a break from the violence but with different POVs, the kind of violence and terror each person faced was different in nature but equally disturbing on the page.
Stories of police brutality are not unfamiliar to us. We see them on the news all the time, and the story reminded me very much of what’s happening in Myanmar right now.
I’ve now read two of Han Kang’s books, the other one being The Vegetarian and out of the two, I prefer this one.