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Author: Jessica Widner, Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, University of Strathclyde
Original article: https://theconversation.com/three-novels-by-nobel-winner-han-kang-that-explain-the-fragile-nature-of-south-korea-249653
Last year, South Korea made headlines around the world for two reasons. The first was writer Han Kang’s celebrated Nobel prize for literature win in October; the second was far less positive. Late in the evening of December 3 2024, the country’s President Yoon Suk Yeol unexpectedly declared martial law – the first time it had happened since the country became a democracy in 1987.
Protestors and lawmakers rushed on to the streets to resist Yoon’s decree, and martial law was annulled early the next morning at 1am.
The ensuing chaos ended on January 26, with Yoon’s arrest. Protests and counter protests continue and the constitutional court of South Korea is yet to deliver its ruling on Yoon’s impeachement, leaving the country’s political horizons uncertain.
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On December 6 2024, 54-year-old Kang appeared at a press conference at the Nobel Museum, in Stockholm. Her remarks on the unfolding events in South Korea were ultimately hopeful: “I, too, watched as individuals tried to stop tanks with their bare hands, embraced armed soldiers to de-escalate, and stood firm against approaching troops … these moments revealed their courage and sincerity.”
This contradiction, between acts of violence and those of love, lies at the heart of Kang’s work. Her novels offer an important lens for understanding Korean history and politics, and explaining the grief and strength of the Korean people.
Human Acts: The Gwangju Massacre
In her Nobel lecture, Kang describes finding a photobook of the Gwangju massacre in her home, as a child. The discovery left her with lasting questions: “How are humans this violent? And yet how is it that they can simultaneously stand opposite such overwhelming violence?”
Yoon’s recent act echoed military dictator Chun Doo Hwan’s instigation of martial law 44 years earlier. On May 18 1980, the military brutally suppressed a university protest. But the people of Gwangju fought back, seizing weapons and forming a citizen’s army that pushed the soldiers out of the town.
For ten days, people held control of Gwangju, until the soldiers returned, killing students and workers with clubs, bayonets and guns. Those who were imprisoned were tortured; many bodies have never been recovered.
Spanning 23 years, Human Acts tells the story of Gwangju from different perspectives, portraying not only the events of the uprising, but its afterlife in the bodies and minds of participants. For many South Korean citizens, the memory of military repression is still fresh in their minds and is what propelled them on to the streets last December.
The Vegetarian: Violence against women
Kang’s best-known novel in the UK, The Vegetarian, also uses multiple viewpoints to tell the story of Yeong-hye, a woman who decides first to stop eating meat, then to stop eating completely.
The Vegetarian poses complex questions about suffering and complicity. Along the way, the effects of Korea’s patriarchal society play out in the often-abusive actions of Yeong-hye’s husband, brother-in-law and father.
Despite its rapid economic growth, South Korea remains a deeply patriarchal and misogynistic country with a widespread culture of discrimination, harassment and violence against women in the workplace, the home and online.
Yoon exploited these gender wars during his 2022 campaign, running on a platform that denied that inequalities between the genders existed, and threatening to abolish the ministry of family and gender equality. It’s no surprise that women have been at the forefront of protests against Yoon and martial law.
We Do Not Part: the Jeju uprising
Kang’s third novel interweaves the story of the Jeju uprising with the present-day story of Kyungha, a writer who travels from Seoul to Jeju island at the behest of her friend, Inseon. Hospitalised after an accident, Inseon sends Kyungha to care for her beloved pet bird. Once there, Kyungha embarks on a ghostly exploration of the island’s violent past.
In the fraught period between the Japanese occupation and the Korean war, the citizens of Jeju protested the division of the country. Police and soldiers adopted a scorched-earth campaign against anyone suspected of being involved with the Worker’s party of Korea.
Wikipedia
An estimated 25,000-30,000 people died – one tenth of the island’s population. The uprising and ensuing massacre wasn’t acknowledged by the government until President Kim Dae-jung commissioned an investigation in January 2000.
The injustice and tragedy of these events cannot adequately be expressed. But even in the crushing bleakness of Kang’s novels, hope sparks in the actions of ordinary people. As Yeong-hye sinks deeper into her illness in The Vegetarian, her sister In-hye cares for her.
In Human Acts, the mother of slain teenager Dong-ho finds solace in her memory of him as a child, saying: “Why are we walking in the dark, let’s go over there, where the flowers are blooming.”
The tender descriptions of birds in We Do Not Part remind us of both the fragility and strength of life. In Kang’s work, hope and resilience dwell in our bond with others. This is how we go on “living after all in this brief, violent world”.