Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and death.

Kyungha is the novel’s protagonist and narrator. She is a complex, round character whose development is a key component of Kang’s narrative. Kyungha is introduced through the recurring nightmare she has in which tree trunks appear to her as half-buried bodies, only partially contained within a mass grave. This dream has plagued her ever since she began researching a book on the state-sponsored massacre in G——, and it establishes Kyungha as one of the novel’s primary points of engagement with the violent moments in Korean history that this novel interrogates. 

Kyungha is a determined woman, persevering in her pursuit of the truth even as it impacts her personal life. She is deeply invested in uncovering this concealed history in part so that the victims of Korea’s various mass killings can be better understood but also so that the Korean people as a whole can come to terms with, process, and ultimately move on from their nation’s brutal past. Kyungha is thus interested in survivor justice but also in reconciliation and healing.