ShelfLook
Tools About
Cover of Human Acts

How long does it take to read Human Acts?

Han Kang, Alba Cunill Fulquet

Human Acts by Han Kang, Alba Cunill Fulquet takes about 3 hours 59 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 3 hours 59 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2014. 217 pages, about 59,675 words.

8 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 6 hours 38 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 3 hours 59 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 2 hours 29 minutes

The page count is the median across 13 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice. An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.

Subjects: Democratization, Politics and government, Fiction, History, Korea, fiction, Fiction, psychological

More by Han Kang

Books like this

Popular books of similar length