Civic groups welcome Han’s Nobel Prize win as chance to highlight Jeju April 3 Incident

Civic groups based on the southern island of Jeju on Friday welcomed novelist Han Kang's Nobel Prize win in literature, saying it offers an opportunity to raise global awareness about the bloody 1948-1954 suppression of a civilian uprising on the island. A group of 55 civic groups, including those focused on the tragedy, offered congratulations in a joint statement issued from Jeju, the site of the bloody crackdown, known as the April 3 Incident, which is the main subject in her latest novel, "We Do Not Part (2021). The Jeju uprising on April 3, 1948, was a protest against U.S. military-led rule that the then government falsely labeled as a communist revolt, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. The novel painstakingly delves into the tragedy of state violence involving the incident and the indelible traumas of those who lost their families and struggled to find missing loved ones. "We hope this becomes an opportunity for the Jeju April 3 Incident to be truly imprinted on the minds o f people around the world, not only in literature but also in various other fields," the civic groups said. "The April 3 Incident should be a story that does not part with the future," they said. Separately, a message of congratulations was also issued by the May 18 Foundation, which commemorates the bloody pro-democracy civil uprising in the southern city of Gwangju in 1980, which is the backdrop of another of her novels, "Human Acts" (2014). "Her award serves as an opportunity to overcome the history of state violence and march toward the future," the foundation said. "In her works, Han explores aspects of historic, social and personal suppression ... and the will to resist them," it also said, adding that "her works, in which people do not neglect each other even amid such pain, are in line with the spirit of the May 18 uprising." Source: Yonhap News Agency