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A Novel
by Han Kang
Book Reviewed by:Han Kang's most revelatory book since The Vegetarian, We Do Not Part tells the story of a friendship between two women while powerfully reckoning with a hidden chapter of Korean history.
One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama.
A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon's house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn't yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into the darkness that awaits her at her friend's house.
Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully illuminates a forgotten chapter in Korean history, buried for decades—bringing to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering,it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable violence—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.
1
Crystals
A sparse snow was falling. I stood on flat land that edged up a low hill. Along the brow of this hill and down its visible face to the seam of the plain, thousands of black tree trunks jutted from the earth. They varied in height, like a crowd of people ranging in age, and were about as thick as railway sleepers, though nowhere near as straight. Stooped and listing, they gave the impression of a thousand men, women, and haggard children huddling in the snow.
Was this a graveyard? I wondered. Are these gravestones?
I walked past the torsos—treetops lopped off, exposed cross sections stippled with snowflakes that resembled salt crystals; I passed the prostrating barrows behind them. My feet stilled as I noticed the sensation of water underfoot. That's strange, I thought. Within moments the water was up to my ankles. I looked back. What I saw astonished me: the far horizon turned out to be the shoreline. And the sea was crashing in.
The words tumbled from my lips: Who would ...
What book or books are you reading this week? (01/09/2025)
I'm reading We Do Not Part, the new novel from Han Kang. I've never read this author before and really didn't have her on my radar until she was awarded the Nobel Prize in late 2024. More to come!
-Evonne_Benedict
The prose is a blend of poetic and straightforward, offering appeal to a wide range of readers, but what keeps the story moving forward is the unmasking of realities behind the Jeju uprising. The first part primarily focuses on Kyungha's travels, while the second dives deep into the massacre, and the third attempts to provide some closure as we reckon with what we've learned. Kang doesn't shy away from the painful details of history but still creates a tone that doesn't feel too depressing. This is a story that teems with hope and resilience while uncovering a nation's painful past and profound loss, showing how people find ways to survive and live with tragedies...continued
Full Review
(929 words)
(Reviewed by Letitia Asare).
Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust
A disquietingly beautiful novel about the impossibility of waking up from the nightmare of history...Han Kang's prose, as delicate as footprints in the snow or a palimpsest of shadows, conjures up the specters haunting a nation, a family, a friendship...Unforgettable. Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies
A visionary novel about history, trauma, art and its tremendous costs. Han Kang is one of the most powerfully gifted writers in the world. With each work, she transforms her readers, and rewrites the possibilities of the novel as a form. Silvia Moreno-Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and The Seventh Veil of Salome
Haunting and dreamlike, this is a novel of secrets and silences.
Han Kang's latest novel, We Do Not Part, delves into a dark part of Korean history known as the Jeju uprising, the Jeju massacre, or (in Korea) "Jeju 4.3," for the day it began. Jeju, Korea's largest island, located southwest of the Korean peninsula, is sometimes today called "the Hawaii of Asia." In the introduction to a recent article about Jeju by the author Gary Shteyngart, Condé Nast Traveler referred to it as "the world's most eccentric island paradise." However, only 75 years ago, it was the location of horrific and devastating political violence, when 10% of the native Jeju population was killed and many more displaced.
At the close of World War II, the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945) was ended by Allied ...
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