This text has been automatically translated from Turkish. Show Original
The year is 1980.
18 years of authoritarian rule was abolished by a military coup; The head of state was killed. However, thousands of people took to the streets in search of their rights. The list of what they want is as follows:
Provide sufficient wages for workers to survive at a minimum level
Let's transition to a democratic social order.
Press and media independence should be ensured.
Martial law should be lifted.
These simple demands were tried to be suppressed with brutal military interventions. Children and children were killed, people were accused of false trials, and they were subjected to torture and insults in prisons, which are described in detail in the book.
Location is Gwangju/South Korea
The author describes this incident, which is still happening in some countries around the world. But how does he really tell it? In some places he uses the second person singular, a type of narrator that I have never come across before and which I enjoy reading. The novel, which begins with a child's role in that resistance, progresses without slowing down with its interesting network of relationships, different writing styles, and different fiction. The novel is divided into chapters, and in each chapter we witness the thoughts and experiences of a person from the child's circle.
Then, when the book is finished, we put our hats in front of us and think for a while. We think about violence, the reasons for which we never understand, its consequences, the monster inside the human being, the potential monster inside the state.