Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age

New York Review of Books, Feb 22, 2001
"They were the children of the people, but the support of the people was slipping away from them..."

Common Dreams News Center
"The book [Kwangju Diary] became the bible of the Korean democracy movement."

Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago
"It is by far the most accurate account, and is a major contribution to modern Korean history."

George Ogle, author of South Korea: Dissent within the Economic Miracle
"For interpreting developments in the 1980s and 1990s, the 'Kwangju Incident' is pivotal. I know no other book that provides us with the realities of those few days in Kwangju."

Book Description
First publication in English of this eyewitness account of the 1980 civilian uprising against Chun Doo Hwan's military coup. First published in Korean in 1985 under the name of dissident novelist Hwang Sog-yong, this revised edition includes an introduction by Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago, and an essay by investigative journalist Tim Shorrock on U.S. involvement in the repression. This book sold more than one million copies in Asia in its Korean and Japanese editions.

Excerpted from Kwangju Diary : Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age by Jae-Eui Lee, Kap Su Seol, Nick Mamatas. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"The Kwangju Rebellion was South Korea's Tiananmen crisis, deeply shaping the broad resistance to the dictatorship in the 1980s and paving the way for democratization in the 1990s, and for the conviction on charges of treason and sedition of the perpetrators who massacred innocent citizens in Kwangju. This experience is a strong warning to other authoritarian regimes, in Asia and elsewhere, about the possible consequences of their draconian actions. An anti-American movement also followed in the wake of the rebellion, and so it is particularly appropriate that we now have an English translation of Lee Jai-eui's classic narrative, Kwangju Diary. It is by far the most accurate account, and is a major contribution to modern Korean history. It is also a book that concerned Americans should read not just because of its critical importance to recent history in Korea, but also because the Kwangju tragedy had a joint authorship: in Seoul, and in Washington." -From the Introduction by Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago


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