We Do Not Part by Han Kang is such a phenomenal writer.
I really enjoyed reading another well written story!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

We Do Not Part follows Kyungha, whose recently injured friend Inseon asks her to care for her pet bird on Jeju Island.

I shouldn't have been surprised at how much I adored this new book from award winning author Han Kang, but it was my first read of hers, and it truly blew me away. The prose is intricate and gorgeous, and the story equally so. Flitting between moments like in a dream -- or a nightmare -- kept me on my toes, and kept me wanting to know more. Despite the sheer amount of things going on, this also felt like a quiet read, and frequently eerie, so much like a snowy winter night in the middle of nowhere. And it makes sense, in the end, why the narrative feels so tonally haunted -- Kang eventually leads us to Jeju 4:3, a massacre I had never heard of before this book. Even before it's at the forefront of the narrative, the horrific events touch every page of this book, and it is sorrowful and transformative.

I picked up Han Kang's entire backlist after finishing this book, and I'll almost certainly be a reader of every forthcoming book.

Han Kang has crafted a beautiful puzzle of a novel. The writing is evocative, the subject matter devastating.

Narrator Kyungha wakes up from a recurring dream: snow, a beach, a forest, tree trunks, a crowd of people. She's disoriented, the heat is stifling, she's not eating and her headaches are relentless.

Kyungha is an author, she's written a (controversial?) novel about the 1980 uprising and subsequent massacre which took place in Gwangju, South Korea. A colleague with whom she's collaborated in the past, documentarian turned woodworker Inseon contacts Kyungha unexpectedly, and ends up asking for a huge favor that sees Kyungha traveling from Seoul to Jeju Island.

This might sound straightforward but We Do Not Part is anything but. Kang uses the framework to dive into the Jeju uprising and subsequent massacre which took place on the island in 1948, in response to the UN/US sponsored elections which Koreans feared would permanently divide the country. Through news articles, interviews, films, photographs and conversations between Kyungha and Inseon, whose parents were survivors of the 1948 uprising, Kang fills in the picture, in pieces, of that part of Korea's history.

The history is tragic. Thousands of people killed or disappeared. Families never knowing what happened to relatives. Mass burials, unmarked graves.

I was mesmerized by this novel. The prose was visceral - I felt the coldness of the snow, the darkness of Inseon's house, the viciousness of the soldiers. The way Kang unspooled the narrative was haunting. Brilliant. Unforgettable.

My thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth Books for the digital ARC.

This translation by Nobel Prize for literature winner Han Kang came out last week and it took me a minute to get used to her style and storytelling but once I did I was immersed. Kang's writing is poetic and lyrical and I wasn't sure at all what was real or what was happening at first, being honest here. I am not smart enough to know what all the snow represented, but I'm sure it represented something. But it's when we get to the meat of the book - meeting the narrator's friend to discuss making art/film to cover the Jeju uprising - that I was hooked. This book covers something I knew nothing about - the Jeju uprising of 1948 and 1949, where 30,000 people were killed in government/military perpetrated atrocities, which, according to accounts, involved gang rape, infanticide, and mass execution of civilians. Atrocities perpetrated with the complicity/aid of the US military. The story pieces together accounts and research so that the filmmaker can tell the story. But it is a deep scar with long felt wounds. This was great. (once I figured it out/it got going).

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. We Do Not Part is out now.

We do not part is an eagerly awaited novel by Nobel prize winning Han kang. It is the story of two friends in North Korea. Kyuhang receives a call from inseon asking her to come visit in the hospital as she has injured herself. Inseon begs kyuhang to return to an island jeju to save her bird ama. Kyuhang reluctantly agrees and finds herself trekking to the island in a snow storm and plunging temperatures. Her arrival at her friends house though will cause her to experience a greater feeling of darkness as she relives a traumatic part of Korean history on her quest.

This is dreamlike book that provides voices of the past a chance to speak through Kyuhang. Nearly reading like a fever dream , this is an eye opening exploration of the historical trauma of a nation. This is a heavy read and can be confusing at parts as the narrative slips between time and place. This provides readers with much to learn about a dark chapter in North Korean history.

Thanks to the publisher for providing this arc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

WHEWWWW what a book. This was beautiful and soooo unsettling. I was so nervous and anxious the entire time reading this. It gave me I’m Thinking of Ending Things vibes because I didn’t really know what was real and what wasn’t and what was fully going on until the end. And even then I was like whaaaat. This was so heartbreaking and even more sad because it is about a massacre that happened in 1948 on a Korean island where hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Holy f. I am so unwell. 5 freaking stars.

https://wesleyanreviewofbooks.wescreates.wesleyan.edu/uncategorized/violent-images-harsh-landscapes/

What a heartbreakingly beautiful book by 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Kang. First published in 2021, the English translation is now out. The story begins by showing narrator Kyungha’s grief and isolation as she withdraws from the world after loss, and the nightmares that plague her after writing a book about a historical Korean massacre. When her friend Inseon is injured and brought to hospital in Seoul, she asks Kyungha to travel from Seoul to the island of Jeju, off the coast of South Korea to care for her bird Ama.

What follows is Kyungha’s journey to Jeju in the driving snow. At Inseon’s house, the story becomes otherworldly, and changes to a haunting narrative about the Jeju uprising of 1948-49 and the horrendous atrocities that were committed by Korean police and military to stamp out a local uprising.

Snow is the dominant metaphor in Kyungha’s journey. Snow covers all manner of past sins and hurts, blanketing everything in a muted, echoless silence. It’s comforting in many ways, fresh and new, white and dazzling, but also an aftermath. In one unforgettable passage, two sisters in decades past wander through the field of a mass killing, brushing snow gently off the faces of the dead in order to find their murdered kin.

Kang’s book has spurred me to do a bit of reading about mid-20th century events on the Korean peninsula. As recently as 2008, a mass grave was found under the Jeju airport, and in 2019 the government reversed military court rulings against Jeju islanders, clearing the victims’ names.

This isn’t the story I thought I was getting when I read the first few chapters, but I’m glad that it is the story that I got. Kang was able to show me the Jeju Uprising through the voices of the past and present, using her characters to bring it to life, brushing the obfuscating snow off the traumas of the past and bringing them to light.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for a gifted copy for review.

This novel is just remarkable. There are scenes in the book that you will never forget. Han Kang the recent recpient of the Nobel Prize has her 2021 novel published in English. I read the book in one seating (i was on a six hour flight) and could not put it down. It's a tough read since it's about a massacre that took place on Jeju Island. The two main charcters are Kyungha and Inseon. They are good friends and when Kyungha gets in an accident at her woodshed she asks Inseon to go feed her bird Ama who hasn't been fed in three days. When she goes out there the novel explores the massacre that took place in 1948. The bird resuce intertwines with the descriptions of what it was like for the citizens fleeing the island and the fate of many will haunt you. I can't remember a book that literally made you look at humanity and the horrible things that we can do to each other with a flick of a switch. It reminds me of things happening today and how we as humans never seem to learn from past mistakes and horrors and how we can never feel safe because people can do these things. The novel is told in a kalidescopic way so be patient with it because by the final page you will be moved and feel ashamed that you may have not know that this massacre happened and that we must pay pay close attention that it can never happen again but sadly things like this will continue to curse humanity. Thank you #netgalley and Hogarth Rando House for this incredble novel. (I'd give it six if I could!)

Unique, atmospheric, absorbing story of friendship and history. The writing is lovely, descriptive, and memorable. The history of Korea in the 40s and early 50s was one of incredible tragedy, and connected to the two friends at the center of the story. This book had a wonderful sense of place.

An ethereal and atmospheric fever dream that reminds us not to forget our past by connecting a modern female friendship with two massacres on South Korea. Kang is a phenomenal writer, her prose is immaculate - I could feel the Jeju snowstorm with all my senses. My only issue was sometimes the past and present links didn't full land, but I realized I didn't really care, I was enjoying the writing so much.

4.5 stars

This is a beautifully written book- I highlighted many passages that resonated with me and knew I would want to come back to. One line in particular, "I had not reconciled with life, but I had to resume living", is one that stuck with me, as the main character is on the cusp of mostly self-imposed life and death. The first chapter reminded me a bit of 'A Man Called Ove', in the blase way the characters go on living, when perhaps they would rather die- the lengths each character goes to get their affairs in order to make their parting easier on others. As this book proceeds though; it becomes about so much more- travelling into the underbelly of the massacre in Jeju, South Korea. The realism, underlying meaning in metaphors, and poetic narrative makes this a beautiful and haunting novel. It is definitely a dense and emotionally heavy read, but well worth it to experience the artful poetry of Kang. Thank you to #NetGalley and #RandomHousePublishingGroup for the ARC

this one is brilliant — in the way a matchstick lights up a room ensconced in darkness. this book sent chills down my spine and didn’t stop until I got to the last page. and I was in 80 degree weather. I got past midpoint and I threw the book down and was OH MY GOODNESS HOW DID I TRANSCEND INTO HORROR. I mean it’s not a horror novel (and it is a ghost story) but Kang has this way of escalating the inhumanity of the atrocities we commit during wartime and the aftermath of said atrocities. For this book, she focused on the killings following the Jeju Uprising…eff it was intense. I really enjoyed the friendship between Kyungha ans Inseon. Artists who can vibe with each other’s work and get inspired and excited by each other’s vision - that’s beautiful.

Thanks to Hogarth Books for an advanced read.

Helping a friend sets a troubled woman on a journey.

Novelist Kyungha is deeply disturbed by dreams after publishing a book, the research for which had her probing a difficult time in Korea's past. She has gone into near complete seclusion but is called back into the world when her friend Inseon contacts her and asks for her help, Inseon has been badly injured and is confined to a hospital, but has left behind a pet bird Ama who will perish if someone doesn't immediately see to its care. Inseon has been living in Jeju in a family home, an area of the country known for a horrific purge of rebels decades earlier. Kynugha sets out on the trek to Jeju, struggles through terrible weather, and once arrived finds herself drawn into the past, particularly that of Inseon's grandmother Min who was a child in Jeju when the anti-communist purge swept through.
Author Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, is reknowned for her poetic use of language and the imagery which permeates her works. In We Do Not Part the reader traces a friendship between two women as well as learns about a part of Korean history that has not been widely told but which merits exploration, the Jeju Uprising of 1948-1949. Snow, birds, fingers, dreams and trauma are blended into the tale through Min's memories and the dream-like state of Kyungha's research. What truths must be told, and will closure result in positive change? The horrors that were wrought on the people of Jeju were and remain horrific, but are approached with respect and a desire to understand as the author confronts the pain inherent to the events. This is not a pleasant topic, but those who read it are rewarded with an elegantly crafted narrative and beautiful language. Readers of Han Kang's previous works will certainly appreciate this latest offering, as would those who enjoy authors like Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan and Da Chen. Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/Hogarth for allowing me access to this intense but beautiful novel in exchange for my honest review.

Han Kang’s “We Do Not Part” exemplifies “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life" for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October. The novel’s protagonist and narrator, Kyungha, a writer who is tormented by nightmares after publishing a book about mass killings and torture (presumably about the 1980 massacre in Gwangju, Korea), has secluded herself for months in her apartment in Seoul, suffering from migraines and nausea, barely eating, and writing and rewriting her “Last Will.” Despite her anxiety and depression, Kyungha does not hesitate when she receives a text from her friend of decades, Inseon, who asks her to come immediately to a hospital in Seoul. Inseon, a documentary film-maker who is a carpenter, sliced off two fingers with an electric saw and was undergoing agonizing treatment. She tasks Kyungha with traveling to her home on Jeju Island, where Inseon had moved to care for her mother until her recent passing, to save her pet bird, Ama, who is caged without food or water.

Kang describes, without histrionics or theatrics, Kyungha’s harrowing journey as she plods her way through the heavy snow and gale force winds trying to reach Inseon’s remote cabin. Kang’s spare prose shines, but particularly in her descriptions of snow: “As the snow lands on the wet asphalt, each flake seems to falter for a moment. Then, like a trailing sentence at the close of a conversation, like the dying fall of a final cadence, like fingertips cautiously retreating before ever landing on a shoulder, the flakes sink into the slick blackness and are soon gone.” In a fever dream, Kyungha encounters the specter of Inseon, and learns how Inseon’s family was impacted by the 1948–1949 Jeju Massacre, in which U.S.-backed Korean forces killed over 30,000 Jeju Island residents suspected of aiding insurgents.

Kang’s restraint in confronting historical trauma makes this novel particularly disquieting. Kang celebrates the resilience of life and hope despite generational trauma and tragedy. A powerful novel of friendship and the violent legacies of the past. Thank you Jaylen Lopez, Assistant Director of Marketing, Random House & Hogarth Books for an advanced copy of this important must read.

I just finished reading this, and it’s perfect. The language is beautiful, the story is haunting and profound, and I couldn’t put it down. Now more than ever, Kang’s reckoning with the way people in power commit atrocities - and then censor, repress, and attempt to rewrite the truth about those atrocities - is so important. Remembering is important. Empathy and courage are important. This book is amazing.

Thanks so much to Hogarth for the review copy.

Everything about this feels painful but also somehow beautiful. Snow and cold weather do not get enough credit for being deadly and gorgeous. Friendship, grief, generational trauma, trauma denial...all of these things are a maelstrom in this quiet, gut-punching novel. At times I wasn't even sure what I was reading because I felt like I was drifting away on the imagery. This hurts.

Han Kang never fails to amaze me with the prose. Her writing is so poetic and symbolic, and the way she writes about nature in We Do Not Part is amazing and breathtaking. The novel follows Kyungha as she journeys through a snowstorm to retrieve a bird at the request of her friend, Inseon, who suffered an accident.

The element of snow in We Do Not Part is so immersive throughout the book, but it also perfectly portrays the cold and the violence of Korean history mentioned in the story. I often imagined the visual of blood red against a stark snowy background and it’s such a striking contrast; Kang does a good job with creating that atmosphere. There is a solemn tone; in its essence, We Do Not Part is gruesome and sad, but it’s also such an important read. However, I’m not familiar with Korean history, so I’d say it would help to learn about it before reading this.

I try not to compare books from the same author, but I have to say this feels and reads quite different from The Vegetarian which has been the only Han Kang book I’ve read so far. We Do Not Part didn’t flow as coherently, the language was more ambiguous, and there was a somewhat confusing back and forth between reality and imagination. That said, it doesn’t take away the fact that the book touches on friendships, war and history, family, and generational trauma so hauntingly and stunningly.

In the end, I realize how powerful the title is and those four words strung together will stay in my mind for a while.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.

2.5 || I feel quite strange giving a mediocre rating to the latest Nobel laureate's 2025 release. I mean, Han Kang just won the Nobel prize in literature, which is no small feat, and she is the first South Korean to win it, as well.

I guess I should preface by saying this is my second of Kang's books that I have read. I got to read an ARC of her 2023 release (it was originally published in Korean in 2011, but was published for the first time in English in 2023), Greek Lessons, and I rated that book a hesitant 4 stars.
Basically, after reading We Do Not Part, I find I have the same issues I had with Greek Lessons, but they felt more pertinent in this novel. This could also be a case where upon reading a second work by Kang, I feel quite confident in saying that her storytelling style is one based on vagueness. I did find Greek Lesson to be confusing and hard to follow, and We Do Not Part was even more convoluted. So, perhaps this is something that I was willing to overlook the first time I read Kang's work, but not something I can keep glossing over, if not for the simple notion of wanting to actually understand what the author desires to communicate through each of her books.

The synopsis told me that this was a novel about a woman that must travel to Jeju Island in order to retrieve her friend's pet bird, and that is the main premise, but I am afraid that all the other things Kang wanted to convey—and perhaps educate me on—were somehwhat lost on me.

Was this novel's focus supposed to be on our MC/narrator, Kyungha, and her current unstable state of mind? Was I supposed to want to know more about her backstory and what sparked her descent into slight madness? I did want to know more—I wanted to know why she suddenly found herself alone and scared, after stating in the first chapter that she had a daughter and a family. I wanted to know if somehow losing her family was truly what led Kyungha to no longer be able to tell the difference between dream or reality. Or maybe it's what Kyungha herself suspects—she initially hypothesizes that her current mental state's direct cause was her research and publication of her book on the Gwangju Uprising. But even Kyungha starts to question her theory, and this is barely touched on after the very first chapter.
So many questions left unanswered. I don't always need everything to be spelled out for me, and vagueness can be something I actually tend to enjoy in literature, but, alas, the ratio between questions and actual context that could give me some answers in this particular novel is way too wide for me.

Was this story really about Kyungha's friend, Inseon? Was this just a way for Kang to tell us—through Inseon—about the Jeju uprising that occurred on 04/03/1948? It could be, because we start to learn in bits until the latter half where there is a lot of storytelling done by Inseon in which she is recounting her island's history from her parent's perspectives, as well as her own and others who she has spoken with. The thing is, I would not be able to confidently categorize this book as historical fiction. Yes, we come to discover certain details about Jeju 4.3 (this is what it is known as in South Korea), and there was use of allusion to another massacre that occurred in South Korea later in 1980: the Gwangju Uprising. BUT! I would not have known or understood most of the history stuff if it weren't for my own research. I feel like maybe towards the end certain aspects of Jeju 4.3 were spelled out a bit more clearly, but for most of the book, I was grasping at straws. Google helped me out and gave me the context I felt that I needed. Which brings me to a theory I have: I think that you will either 1) already be aware of this particular aspect in Korean history, or 2) you will be forced to do your own research, because there are even city names that aren't spelled out and Kang only gave us the first letter, or 3) you are the chillest of the chill readers and don't need or care to know everything.

Lastly, I wanna touch on what I think this story is really about: Kyungha and Inseon's friendship. And this is definitely what I enjoyed most about this novel; their history and scenes together are what drove me to keep going. I should also mention quickly before continuing that, of course, the writing is beautiful. This is something I enjoyed about Greek Lessons, and Kang's delectable prose was ever present in We Do Not Part. This along with what Inseon meant to Kyungha and vice versa, were the two elements that kept me from rating this any lower than 2.5 stars.
Even though we don't get much from Kyungha's past, we learn a lot about Inseon, making her shine a bit more brightly, and it's an endearing notion because Inseon shines through Kyungha's eyes.
In a time where both women aren't surrounded by friends and family they can turn to, they realize that their friendship was and is extremely valuable.

I'm gonna leave it at that. If you have enjoyed Kang's previous work, then you are probably going to enjoy this one! (:

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House | Hogarth for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The bonds of shared friendship and horror meld together in this horrific and dreamlike novel mingled with images of stark white snow stained with red drops of blood. Kyungha’s friend Inseon has had an accident and was transported from her home on Jeju Island to a hospital in Seoul. But Inseon’s pet bird Ama needs to be taken care of so Kyungha travels by plane and bus to get to Inseon’s home on the island during a major snowstorm. Her real and dreamlike journey takes us down the road of friendship and remembrance as the book unspools the horror of thousands of lives cruelly extinguished and families destroyed during Korea’s history that had been long buried. This is a stark and visual read with the experience and condition of the landscape and environment during the snow storm harkening to the realities of what occurred in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I sometimes found moving back and forth between the real and dreamlike parts challenging, which probably was intentional. This is a book that definitely highlights a not-to-be-forgotten part of Korean history presented in a unique way by the author. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.