더크래커 박지훈 기자

Author Han Kang’s(한강) Nobel Prize in Literature marks not only the beginning of the K-literature wave, but also a pivotal moment where Korean literature takes a bold step onto the global stage. Equally significant is the growing public interest in literature, which deserves special recognition. Since her award, the 1980s era that serves as the backdrop of her work has come under renewed spotlight.

In celebration of Korea’s 80th Liberation Anniversary, master cartoonist Heo Youngman’s(허영만) 「Oh! Han River 오! 한강」 has been re released in a two volume special edition. This graphic novel forms the historical backdrop of Han Kang’s Human Acts.

「Oh! Han River」 captures the bleakness of an era through a stark, objective lens.

Though it may appear to be nothing more than a black and white comic, the emotions embedded within anger, resignation, compromise, and cries for justice are deeply palpable. This is not just a story of the past. It is an ongoing narrative.

The main character, Lee Kangto, lives in a time that may be post liberation, yet it is far from free; the war may be over, but peace has not arrived. He and his son, Seokjoo, though from different generations, share the same sense of helplessness. They lived for a greater cause, but their outcomes were always shattered pieces. Each time the old order collapses, a new despair emerges yet in the face of it, they remained artists, citizens, and above all, human.

What’s astonishing is that the project began with funding from the National Security Planning Agency. Still, the artist defied this "dark sponsorship" to relentlessly expose truths once deemed taboo. The sounds of torture chambers, the shadow of a foreign flag, the crushed dreams of youth through the medium of comics, truth found a way even amidst state controlled media and propaganda. This work is not merely an anti communist parable; it’s a damning indictment of its time.

Oh! Han River, re-released in a two-volume edition to mark the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation. Photo=Guardian(가디언)

The air of that era, suspended in every illustration, doesn’t feel distant. The questions 「Oh! Han River」 raises remain deeply relevant today: Can artists afford to be silent? Can intellectuals retreat from the streets? What do we choose to remember and what do we let ourselves forget? In a democracy increasingly spoken through the language of consumerism rather than politics, these questions still demand to be heard.

Han Kang’s Human Acts brought the world face to face with one of the most brutal chapters in modern Korean history the blood stained truth of Gwangju. And the world it depicts stems from the foundation laid in 「Oh! Han River」. The shadows Heo Youngman sketched are brought back to life in Han Kang’s prose. If K-literature is now blooming on the world stage, it is because Heo planted the seeds and Han brought them to flower. Our memory our narrative has evolved beyond translation to become an act of emotional interpretation.

There was a time when it was believed literature couldn’t cross borders. But today, Korean literature is no longer constrained by geography it transcends the senses. If Han Kang has proven that sentences written in blood can resonate as truth across any land, then 「Oh! Han River」 served as the blueprint of that truth.

At the heart of these two works lies a shared current the way they invoke memory. How much have we forgotten, and how much must we remember? K-literature refuses to stop asking that question. Even if the drawings are still, the truth flows like a tide rising once more across the land, their struggles remain unfinished.

Seol Myounghwan(설명환), Literary Critic & CEO of Pulse