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Human Acts
Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
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Check link for latest rating. ( 65,764 ratings, 10,948 reviews)
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See moreA riveting, poetic and unrelentingly powerful work from the author of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize-winning novel The Vegetarian.
WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE: a riveting, poetic and unrelentingly powerful work from the author of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize-winning novel The Vegetarian
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Description
Gwangju, South Korea, 1980. In the wake of a viciously suppressed student uprising, a boy searches for his friend's corpse, a consciousness searches for its abandoned body, and a brutalised country searches for a voice. In a sequence of interconnected chapters, the victims and the bereaved encounter censorship, denial, forgiveness, and the echoing agony of the original trauma.
Human Acts is a universal book, utterly modern and profoundly timeless. Already a controversial bestseller and award-winning book in Korea, it confirms Han Kang as a writer of immense importance.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Human Acts by Han Kang has been praised for its poetic and brutal language, offering a vital exploration of the Gwangju Uprising's aftermath. Reviewers describe it as powerful, disturbing, and an emotional triumph, with a narrative that captures the haunting conversations between the living and the dead. The novel is noted for its spare yet emotionally charged writing, making it an extraordinary examination of politics, violence, and humanity.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781846275975
Publisher: Granta Books
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 03 November 2016
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Granta Books
Contributors:
- Translated by Deborah Smith
- Translated by Deborah Smith
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 14.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 173g
Pages: 224
About the Author
HAN KANG was born in Gwangju, South Korea, and moved to Seoul at the age of ten. She studied Korean literature at Yonsei University. Her writing has won the Yi Sang Literary Prize, the Today's Young Artist Award, and the Korean Literature Novel Award. The Vegetarian, her first novel to be translated into English, was published by Portobello Books in 2015 and won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. She currently teaches creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.DEBORAH SMITH's translations from the Korean include two novels by Han Kang, The Vegetarian and Human Acts, and two by Bae Suah, A Greater Music and Recitation. In 2015 Deborah completed a PhD at SOAS on contemporary Korean literature and founded Tilted Axis Press. In 2016 she won the Arts Foundation Award for Literary Translation. She tweets as @londonkoreanist.
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