Human Acts

A Novel

De: Han Kang, Deborah Smith

Narrado por: Sandra Oh, Deborah Smith - introduction, Greta Jung, Jae Jung, Jennifer Kim, Raymond J. Lee, Keong Sim

FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

“[Han Kang writes in] intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”—from the Nobel Prize citation

The internationally bestselling author of The Vegetarian presents a “rare and astonishing” (The Observer) portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice.

“Compulsively readable, universally relevant, and deeply resonant . . . in equal parts beautiful and urgent.”—The New York Times Book Review

Shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Atlantic, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, HuffPost, Medium, Library Journal

Amid a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed.

The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.

An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.

Read by Sandra Oh, Greta Jung, Jae Jung, Jennifer Kim, Raymond J. Lee, and Keong Sim, with an introduction read by Deborah Smith

©2017 Han Kang (P)2017 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Stunning . . . Han Kang has an ambition as large as Milton’s struggle with God: She wants to reconcile the ways of humanity to itself.”—NPR

“Human Acts is unique in the intensity and scale of this brutality. . . . The novel details a bloody history that was deliberately forgotten and is only now being recovered.”—The Nation

“Exquisitely crafted.”—O: the Oprah Magazine

Rebellion Sweet

Unless you understand, you will not know. Unless you're Korean, you might not understand. Unless you're human, you will not understand what it is to be in Korea.

Well written darkness

This work though masterfully written was almost too dark for my tastes. Depression is not a place I like to visit but this work leaves me there on the cusp. Social and political upheaval are best visited from far,far away.

The history and information

I never knew about that massacre till now. life changing book on how I look at our government abd koreas

heart aching

the details that described in each different situations, the sorrow, brutality, hurts, and some healing follows.

CONTEXT

This is a truly horrific novel about a South Korean uprising in 1980 but it lacks historical context.

For one unfamiliar with South Korean history, the intent of describing the consequence of government slaughter of innocents is subsumed by numberless atrocities of the past. Kang undoubtedly intends to recount an historical event with universal meaning but succeeds in only offering a cathartic exercise for a gifted writer.

Man's inhumanity to man is an historical fact. Novels about government atrocity are mentally numbing without historical context.

The reality of today's North Korea is more mindfully present than Kang's un-contextualized story of South Korea. "Human Acts" is a disappointing novel.

Tedious

the drones on endlessly about dead bodies by the end of the second chapter I was totally bored.

Written for an Korean audience

This is supposed to be a book about one of the most cruel period of Korean modern history.

I’m sure if you are Korean it will all make a lot of sense but for me it’s just a collection of novels with a common red line going across them - and they’re not very good. They are sad, but they’re not very engaging. You’re left wondering about what these people gone through more than you actually understand what they gone through.

What a horrible book

Among the worst I’ve ever found. Unless you want disgusting decaying body descriptions I’d pass

Story with potential, Monotone female narration

If I read it, I think I may have appreciated the cadenced descriptions more, but the monotone female narration made the book extremely difficult to listen to. It's unfortunate that better female readers didn't take on this book.

As for the actual story, I sense that in translation, much of the cultural aspects of the story was lost, esp regarding certain expressions that came off cliche in English. Still, it became clear that too much emphasis was placed on the corporeal descriptions rather than on the relational and character build up. It would also have been helpful to spend a bit more time earlier on setting the stage for the military clash.

Boring description, no plot

The book goes on and on describing dead bodies and there is hardly any plot. I also hate the second person narration.