Han Kang’s Nobel Prize sheds light on the Gwangju Uprising, a dark chapter in South Korean history

When Han Kang was nine years old, the massacre of civilians by soldiers in her hometown of Gwangju radically changed the course of South Korean history.

The 1980 Gwangju student uprising and subsequent massacre, sometimes called Korea’s Tiananmen Square, was the subject of her acclaimed 2014 novel Human Acts.

Han this month became the first Korean to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Eyewitnesses and survivors of Gwangju welcomed the award, hoping it will help bring a previously hidden story to a global audience.

But Han is not the first to write about the atrocities that occurred in Gwangju—and those who came before her faced incredible risks.

One of them is writer and eyewitness Lee Jae-eui, who said what made Han’s Human Acts so powerful was the Nobel laureate’s ability to intuitively reflect on aspects of his own experiences.

What happened in Gwangju

In mid-May 1980, South Korean society found itself at the mercy of military dictator Chun Doo-hwan.

Tired of martial law, students peacefully protested on the streets of the working-class city of Gwangju, calling for Chun resign.

The military regime responded with force on May 18 in Operation Magnificent Celebration.

Thousands of soldiers were involved.

They beat, shot and arrested protesters, and helicopters shot citizens from the air.

Other Gwangju locals joined the students and armed themselves before the soldiers crushed the uprising.

The military killed at least 166 people in 10 days, according to a truth commission set up in 2020, although the numbers are disputed and estimates vary.

The commission found that dozens more were missing (presumed dead) and more than 2,600 were injured.

Park Kang Bae was a 17-year-old high school student who witnessed the events unfold.

Mr. Park’s most vivid memory is of bodies piled up in a pile at the local gym.

“The citizens demanded democracy, but the soldiers suppressed it by force, killing and wounding many people – and the wounds have not healed to this day.”

Lee, the author, remembers hiding in an alley when snipers opened fire on his fellow protesters.

“About 10 meters in front of me, a young man was wounded and lay bleeding. He flinched for a moment and then went limp,” he told ABC.

“When I looked at people dying, my anger increased and I could not hold back my tears.”

Secret manuscript

Lee managed to escape before the military finally crushed the uprising, but deep survivor’s guilt later prompted him and some staff to document the brutal events.

Together with his co-authors, he began collecting testimonies from survivors into a book.

“Chun Doo-hwan’s military regime carefully hid the truth of the massacre from the outside world,” he said.

Some of those who helped collect testimonies from survivors and collect evidence were tortured and imprisoned, he said.

His book, Gwangju Diary, was originally published in 1985 under the name of a famous Korean writer.

It was only decades later that Lee was revealed as the real author.

The publisher was arrested and copies were confiscated, but the secret manuscript circulated underground.

Lee said the book was a “thorn in the side of the military dictatorship” which gave in to people’s demands for democratic elections in 1988.

Revealing the Hidden History

South Korean historian Se Young Chan said Gwangju’s story has a universal message.

“The Gwangju Uprising was not an isolated tragedy that occurred in Korea,” she said.

Dr Jang, a senior researcher at the University of Vienna, noted that long-standing censorship and previous conservative governments meant that the experiences of the Gwangju victims were not properly investigated for many years.

Chun’s regime promoted a false conspiracy theory about North Korean involvement in pro-democracy protests.

It was not until 40 years after the event that a truth commission was established, although Dr Jang said some Gwangju civil society groups were still unhappy with its findings.

And it took decades for official acknowledgment and apology for sexual abuse by soldiers during the uprising.

The extremes of humanity

For many, Gwangju has become a symbol of democracy.

But for Han Kang, Gwangju became another word for the two extremes of humanity: the sublime and the terrible.

“I see Gwangju everywhere we encounter these two extremes,” she said in a 2020 interview.

The Han family fled Gwangju just a few months before the crackdown began, and like Lee, she felt guilty.

“It felt like some people got hurt instead of us,” she said.

Khan recalled eavesdropping on quiet conversations between her parents as a child while peeling garlic in the kitchen, and being deeply moved by a photograph she saw of a young woman killed during the uprising.

According to Jay Song of the Korea Research Center at Curtin University, Human Acts embodies “han,” a Korean emotion that has no direct translation into English.

Dr. Jang said Human Action took readers “into the souls of these victims.”

She added that Han’s latest novel, We Are Not Parting, which will be released in English next year, deals with a similar historical tragedy of state violence – this time focusing on the uprising and massacre on Jeju Island in the late 1940s.

Professor Song said Han’s Nobel victory would also give people a “deeper understanding of Korea.”

“It’s not all about this shiny, luxurious K-pop and the bright lights of Seoul,” she said.