I’ve organized the most impactful               
parts of Han Kang’s 'Human Acts' 
in the form of a webtoon blog.

Congratulations to Han Kang!

May 1980.
Gwang-ju, Korea

Of the two friends who
went to the square together,
Jung-Dae is shot dead by soldiers.

And Dong-Ho ran away
He had to.

You lay prone with your face
pressed to the chilly floor

You ground your fist into the
concavity at the center of your sternum

If Jeong-mi were to come in
through the main gate right 
this second, you would race 
over and fall to your knees

"Isn't he your friend?"

"Aren't you a human being..."

Dong-ho, arrived Jung-Dae's room

Jeong-Dae
appeared as a spirit

A strange violence welled up within me,

not spurred by the fact
of my death, but simply
because of the thoughts
that wouldn't stop tearing
through me

"Who killed me"

"Who killed my sister, and why?"

And he goes

It now is 1985. Eunsook became
a publishing house employee.
She was a high schooler in 
Gwang-ju, 1980.

The police slapped her
seven times

The police didn't like
the book she had prepared.

After you were lost to us, all our
hours declined into evening

In this half-light that no longer
darkens nor lightens,

we eat, and walk, and sleep.

After you died, I could not hold a funeral

so my life became a funeral

Scalding tears burn 
from her open-eyes, but
she does not wipe them away
And she read the book

1990. In prison, Kim Jin-soo
who were one of the protestors
in Gwang-ju and the narrator
are being tortured.

They both recall a certain photo.
The children are lying down.
Dongho is there too.

Now do you understand?

The kids in this photo aren't lying
side by side because their corpses
were lined up like that
after they were killed.

They were walking in a straight line

with both arms in the air

so my life became a funeral

The narrator, recalling
the time when the photo
was taken, says:

The two endure tortures
that are difficult to put into words.

I am fighting alone, everyday. 

I fight with the hell that I survived. 

I fight with the fact of my own humanity. 

I fight with the idea that
death is the only way
of escaping this fact.

so my life became a funeral

Jin-soo takes his own life.
In his suicide note, he writes:

2010. Mother of Dong-Ho.

Day or night, the house is always
empty, but still I like to wait until the
early hours of the morning

when there'd be no earthy reason
for anyone to drop by, before I
unwrap it from the folds of plain
writing paper and smooth out the
creases lining your face.

There's no one around to overhear,
but still I only let myself whisper it... 

Dong-ho.

so my life became a funeral

I cut out the photo from
your school ID and put it in my purse.