In 2024, South Korean author Han Kang (born 1970) won the Nobel Prize in Literature. This made her the first South Korean and the first Asian female Nobel Prize winner. She has previously won awards such as the International Man Booker Prize and the Medici Prize for Foreign Literature. Her representative works include , , and . Among these, , set during the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, is arguably the most important work for her personally as she is from Gwangju. is a work composed of an ensemble of characters. It vividly depicts the tragedy of the Gwangju Democratization Movement through the eyes of the main character, middle school student ‘Dong-ho’, as well as the people around him. During the Gwangju Democratization Movement, Dong-ho volunteers to collect the body of his friend Jeong-dae and help the families of the victims among the civilian army, but he also becomes a victim of state violence and tragically loses his life. In the epilogue, the story of the author Han Kang herself is added, further highlighting the existential meaning of the character Dong-ho. Dong-ho was the disciple of Han Kang's father, Han Seung-won, and Dong-ho's family was the owner of the hanok nextdoor in Jungheung-dong, Gwangju, where Han Kang spent her childhood. This background shows that the work is deeply connected to actual historical events, not merely fiction. Through , Han Kang confronts the tragedy of modern Korean history and reminds us of a part of history that should not be forgotten. The contrast between the national army that massacred civilians with guns and the national army that had guns but could not shoot the national army shows the inhumanity of state violence and the value of human conscience. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read the works of Han Kang, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, or to anyone who is thinking about what they should do as humans to prevent the same history from repeating itself.