Yung In Chae at The Yale Review:
On October 10, 2024—the day after Hangeul Day, which celebrates the invention of the Korean alphabet—I and millions of other Koreans were able to do something we had never been able to do before: read a novel by a Nobel Prize laureate in our native language.
And what extraordinary grace that the laureate should be Han Kang. Last year, I had the honor of interviewing Han about Deborah Smith and e. yaewon’s English translation of her novel Greek Lessons. We became friends who now meet up whenever I’m in Seoul, and I can testify that she embodies in real life the gentleness she demonstrates in her books. Beyond her individual worthiness, it is significant that South Korea’s two laureates—former president Kim Dae-jung received the Peace Prize in 2000—have both led careers shaped by the long fight for democratization. For decades, conservatives have denied or dismissed the Gwangju Uprising, the atrocity in which the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan killed hundreds of pro-democracy protesters, and wounded or maimed thousands more. Because of Han’s Nobel win, more of the world will know that it not only happened, but also that it continues to matter.
The Gwangju Massacre is central to Han’s magnum opus, Human Acts—a harrowing and clear-eyed yet somehow tender look at the weeks-long uprising against Chun that began on May 18, 1980, resulting in exorbitant death and enduring collective trauma. The novel also means a great deal to me personally: For as long as I can remember, my mother, who is four years older than Han, has resisted thinking about life under Chun in the 1980s, so much so that she avoids TV shows and movies set in that decade.
More here.
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