Human Acts

Until late December 1977, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching English at Chonbuk University in Jeonju City, the capital of North Jeolla Province of South Korea. I was there for two years and it was a tense time politically, both internally and because of the ongoing conflict with North Korea. While Jeonju City was fairly calm–it's an agricultural province known for its great food–the neighboring province, South Jeolla, was a hotbed of anti-government activity. Tensions weren't unknown in Jeonju, though. I remember that one of my students stopped showing up to classes. When I asked where he was, the students wouldn't tell me, but I eventually learned that he'd been arrested for demonstrating against the government.

Just a year and a half after I left Korea, the ruthless President, Park Chung-hee, was assassinated. In 1979-80, demonstrations against the government and the newly installed President Chun grew, especially in Gwangju, the capital of South Jeolla. In May, the demonstrations were brutally quelled and an unknown number of people were killed by the military. (Officially, the number is under 200 dead; unofficially the number is between one and two thousand.)

The Gwangju Uprising is the subject of this book, which is told in stark and gruesome detail. It is shocking because while the dramatization is imagined by the author, the story is true. It's told from a variety of points of view, mostly focused on a middle-school boy, Dong-ho, who participates in the demonstrations and later is remembered by various survivors and witnesses.

It's not an easy book to read, but it's an important one. Never again. We hope.