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About Human Acts: A Novel (Unabridged)

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