I am not usually on top of reading the latest Nobel prize winner's books, but in the case of Han Kang, I had already had her books on my list before. In the past two months I've read two books by her, The Vegetarian and, now, We Do Not Part. And I have to say that although I appreciated The Vegetarian, We Do Not Part hit me in a completely different way. Thanks to Penguin, Hamish Hamilton, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

We Do Not Part is a book about history and trauma, about how trauma gets passed down, even silently, through generations, and about how, even without you being aware of it, you may be carrying it with you. In this book, Han Kang addresses a part of Korean history I was unaware of, specifically the Jeju Uprising (April 1948 - May 1949) and the Bodo League Massacre and Gyeongsan Cobalt Mine Massacre that followed. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans, men, women, young children, babies, and elderly, died during these massacres and it took decades for the full truth to emerge about it and for the bereaved to receive recognition. As such, violence and pain reverberate throughout We Do Not Part, which does not make it an easy read. Not only are there detailed descriptions of war crimes, torture, and violence, but it is also made clear how a trauma like this leaves traces throughout a people and country. Both main characters in the book, Kyungha and Inseon, are haunted in different ways by the past. For Kyungha, she is followed by horrid dreams ever since writing a book about a massacre, which may or may not have led to the depression she is currently experiencing. Inseon, meanwhile, comes from Jeju and her family was deeply marked by the horrors they experienced. As an adult, Inseon is uncovering this history, while coming to terms with her own ideas of her parents. I am German and, in a weird way, I recognised certain elements of Han Kang's discussion of history and trauma in the way I deal with my country's past. What happened in the places I live, the horrors that were committed there, it leaves traces I still encounter every day through memorial plaques or stories that are shared. Of course the Holocaust and Nazi regime are very different from the massacres and regime of Korea in the 1940's and '50s, but this heavy burden of the past, of knowingly being somewhere where evil happened, it's a shadow I recognise and whose weight is almost unbearable at times. Somehow, in We Do Not Part, Han Kang manages to both shine a stark, unflinching light onto these horrors, while grasping the flickering, shadowed perspective of trauma, which can't bear to look back but is forced to every time.

We Do Not Part is split into three parts, ironically, called 'I. Bird', 'II. Night', and 'III. Flame'. The novel is largely told through Kyungha's perspective, especially in the first part. She is living in Seoul, although you could hardly call it living. Kyungha is haunted by dreams of trees, snow, graves, and floods, ever since writing a book about a massacre and now she is trying to write a final will. She is roused, however, when her friend Inseon asks her to come to the hospital, where she is currently recovering after an accident. Inseon was a photographer and documentary filmmaker, until she returned to Jeju Island to look after her ageing mother. Inseon needs Kyungha to go to Jeju immediately, to give her bird water because otherwise she will die. And so Kyungha lands on Jeju as an epic snow storm takes over the island. The whole of We Do Not Part, arguably, takes place over two or so days, as Kyungha heads to Jeju, struggles to Inseon's house, and there has to deal with the past of Inseon's family, their experiences during the Jeju Uprising and the following massacres, and how this shaped both Inseon and herself. What of the latter two parts of the novel is "real" and what is a dream hardly matters. We Do Not Part becomes at once a novel about the horrors of the past and a novel about the strength of friendship. This may sound cliche and it is important to know that it is not as if friendship saves the day in We Do Not Part. Rather, Han Kang manages to depict this quiet resilience you can find in friendship, which allows you to face the darkest parts of yourself and history, the things you fear but know are there, which allows you to share a burden, to gaze into the abyss together and feel a little less alone in the face of it. Without this core friendship, and the insights we get into it, We Do Not Part would have been a deeply depressing novel, but through it, Han Kang almost manages to shine a light onto how we might be able to cope with the horrors of the past. By dragging it into the light, looking at it together, and being there with one another.

As I mentioned above, I read The Vegetarian at the end of 2024. I had heard so much about the book that my expectations were quite high, but I was not prepared for the dreamlike oddness of the book, the distance it took from its purported main character. I think I need to reread it at some point. Because of this experience, I went into We Do Not Part a little less sure of whether Han Kang's writing worked for me. And yet, it gripped me almost immediately in a way The Vegetarian hadn't. We Do Not Part is a lyrical, dreamlike book as well, but here it reflects the mindset of trauma in a way that eases the reader into the experience. In their review on We Do Not Part, Roman Clodia talked about the the varied use of symbolism, especially the snow and fingers, which come to mean different things, and about how these 'sorts of dualities of imagery give a gorgeous coherence to the book'. This kind of crystalised for me what worked so well about We Do Not Part, which is that this slow layering of symbols and ideas functions almost like the snow in the novel itself. The first few gentle snowflakes of snow can be ignored or looked past, but once it comes down heavy that softness becomes heavy and oppressive. Han Kang builds up slowly to the absolute horror of the historical events We Do Not Part focuses on until, in the end, much like Kyungha and Inseon, you cannot escape it and have to face it. It is a slow path, but by the end, Kyungha and Inseon were people to me, rather than characters, and people I cared very deeply about. I also think e. yaewon/이예원 and Paige Aniyah Morris did an excellent job translating the book. While, of course, I don't know how the Korean read, I definitely got a sense of the lyricism and dreamlike quality Han Kang must have intended for this book.

We Do Not Part is a stunning and painful book, which uncovers a period of history we really all should know more about. It is a novel about pain and the worst kinds of things that can be done, but it is also about how we look at these things unflinchingly, even if it hurts. While it isn't a "how to deal with trauma" book, it is the kind of book that might be able to give you a language for the things you are dealing with.

Kangs books is one of the creepiest I know. Her way of getting to to the inner of things and almost flaking out the most delicate of every character is more creepy than a ghost story. This is a must-read! Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Han Kang’s work always makes me think about anxiety—especially the kind that builds to the edge of a breakdown, or at least something that feels like one. In We Do Not Part, I could sense the restrained energy of her characters, “like an asteroid thought to be on a collision course avoids Earth by a hair’s breadth.” There’s a quiet intensity in the way she writes, a tension that lingers long after the final page; like something unspoken, but never quite gone.

This book ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🩹

Han Kang’s WE DO NOT PART (originally published as 작별하지 않는다 in 2021, English translation by e. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris) is a beautiful and immersive work that, at its heart, is a story of love and friendship and the stories that are the stuff of us.

Kyungha receives an urgent call concerning Inseon, an old friend and creative partner. They had once planned to work on a project inspired by a recurring dream of Kyungha’s, one that kept visiting her in the wake of her affecting research into a novel about (presumably) the Gwangju massacres. But things came up, years passed, and it never really got off the ground. Now Kyungha receives news that Inseon has had a debilitating injury which requires specialist care at a hospital in Seoul. She visits Inseon, who later asks her to do what feels like an impossible task: to urgently get to Inseon’s home in Jeju and care for Inseon’s cherished pet bird before its too late. Battling a thick snowstorm and unfamiliar terrain, she relies on her memories of a previous trip to visit Inseon and her late mother Jeongsim in order to try and get there in time.

Beautifully drawn, the journey takes on larger connotations. Amidst the thick snowfall, the beauty in endless white, is a twin feeling of unease and suffocation. A person could be buried in all that lightness and serenity. As she arrives at Inseon’s, a storm-induced power cut removes all external sources of light and warmth. Inseon is there, and stories reveal themselves in the hush and flickering shadows, a stub of candlelight all there is to illuminate their surroundings.

Boundaries between the real and unreal, past and present, are infinitely blurred in this dream-like setting, painful stories of violent oppression faced by Jeju Islanders in the wake of the 1948 Uprising taking on life in the winter chill. Spoken into the void, cruel injustices faced by the people of Jeju, Inseon’s own family, take on form between the two friends, long-buried historical traumas as vivid as a series of haunting tableaus in the white dark.

If the same water molecules cycling through this atmosphere into cloud and rain and snow have done so over and over since time immemorial, rising from the earth to gently fall upon Jeju again and again, then and now, then these keepers of collective memory are tangible reminders of histories that remain as vividly alive in the present. The long deferred collaboration between these two friends have taken place after all, a compelling journey into the abyss. Grief is fathoms deep, bringing it to light comes at a cost.

I loved this book. Once again, I’m left with admiration for Han Kang’s talents as writer, even as my heart feels like it’s been wrung dry. Elements of her previous works are recognisable here, but it easily stands as it’s own work. Her artistry is evident, words painting landscapes, delicately drawn metaphors evoking the feeling of oppression and sorrow that comes with witnessing testimonies of people who suffered; survivors, descendants, and the dead. As if to reflect government censorship, the stories burn brightest in the shadows, details painstakingly searched for in pages of documents. As real as their surroundings, the past lives on in the present. To resist efforts to forget is an act of love, a responsibility bequeathed to the living. Only with bringing truths to light, can reconciliation occur. Only through remembering the past, can we honour those who have departed, from whom we do not part.

Thank you so much @hamishHamilton @netgalley for my copy of this book, very grateful! 🤍

This one is really tough to review as I think the writing is phenomenal, but I struggled with the pacing so much. It’s taken me so much longer to read than usual and I found I was only invested in part of the novel. The telling of the events of a largely undiscussed part of Korean history kept me reading, but I often put the book down during parts in between and wasn’t overly motivated to pick it up again. Overall, this one wasn’t really for me but I’m glad I read it to learn about the Jeju massacre and also to read Kang’s excellent writing.

This author is an amazing writer. I have read The Vegetarian which like this book, I found hard going at times, a little slow if I'm honest but the writing is just phenomenal. The charaters are so real. The drifting between dream and reality was intriguing but sometimes hard to follow. Some sentences were just absolutely perfect. I am definitely going to buy a copy of this book as somehow (weirdly) I think it will be even better and I'll get more from it.

It would be easy to pull in all the superlatives about this novel – without question, the writing is outstanding, as is the deft luring in of the reader. Friendship, loyalty, family, are finely drawn with mystery and suspense to keep the pages turning. Every sense is brought into play as history unfolds to share horrifying and sinister events, long smothered. Han Kang manages to be fantastical and surreal, inverting and subverting the rules of reality on this heartbreaking journey of enduring friendship and memories.

“𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘵?
𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘯𝘦’𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘵?
𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦?”

Kyungha, our main character, is a writer who is on the verge of completing her latest novel. However, she struggles with vivid nightmares that she believes are tied to her writing process, as if she is releasing her inner demons onto the page - these nightmare usually go away once she meets her writing deadline. Here we catch brief glimpses of her narrative that seem disconnected from reality. But this time, things take a turn: even after finishing her manuscript, the nightmares continue to haunt her.

Kyungha’s writing routine is interrupted by a text from Inseon, an old close friend who used to be a filmmaker “𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦, 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘰𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘮-𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯” – but today Inseon has changed careers to become a sculptor/carpenter of sorts in a remote village in Jeju Island; The two friends have last seen each other just over a year. We learn that Inseon had be airlifted to Seoul for an operation following a serious accident chopping wood, she might lose her fingers/hand movement. Inseon has had to leave behind her pet bird, which will quickly die unless it is fed. She sets Kyungha the mission to go to her house on the island to save her bird.

What ensues is part nightmare, part reality, part torpor. With Kyungha’s journey comes also a journey of understanding and resilience, through her stay at Jeju Island the hidden story of Inseon's family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in an archive Inseon’s had assembled at the house, documenting a terrible massacre on the island of 30,000 civilians, murdered in 1948-9.

Kang masterfully weaves a dark, intimate tale that is steeped in history, delivering it in a distant yet profoundly powerful manner. At one point, I did wonder if these were still Kyungha’s nightmares – what if this was the book she was writing, it isn’t clear though, but I like to think so.

This is the third of her books that I've read, beginning with The Vegetarian , followed by Greek Lessons . I've been told that I should have read 'Human Acts' before this one—oh well, that will have to be my next read! #pudseyrecommends

“𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘯, 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦𝘥, 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵, 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵?
𝘞𝘦 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵, 𝘐 [𝘒𝘺𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘩𝘢] 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥.
𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘨𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘰𝘯 𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴. 𝘞𝘦 𝘋𝘰 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵. 𝘈𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘣𝘺𝘦, 𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴? […] 𝘐𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨? 𝘐𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘥? 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘣𝘺𝘦 – 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦? 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺?”

Thanks to Penguin UK & Netgalley for the arc.

I knew nothing about the Jeju massacre before reading this so this was a really enlightening but difficult read. I enjoyed the contrast in the two parts of the book and how reality began to shift as the story progressed. Not a single word is wasted, every sentence is sublime. My first Han Kang read and I will definitely be going back for more.

Nobel Prize winner for Literature, South Korean author Han Kang demonstrates why she was a worthy winner for that award in her latest book (published in Korean in 2021) and the most recent to be translated into English (by E Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris) – We Do Not Part. Described as a companion piece to Human Acts, her novel about the Gwangju Uprising in 1980, We Do Not Part stands witness to the massacre of civilians on the island of Jeju in the years following World War 2 and the ongoing impact of those events.
The novel is primarily narrated by Kyungha, a stand in for the author, who is still struggling after writing about another massacre. Kyungha has had a disturbing dream and had planned, with the help of her old friend and colleague Inseon, to recreate the vision of that dream in reality. But before any of that can come to fruition she is called to a hospital in Seoul where she finds Inseon recovering from a serious woodworking accident. Inseon asks Kyungha to go immediately to her house in a remote area of Jeju Island to feed her pet bird, who was left alone in the rush and will die without food and water. Kyungha’s journey, through snow and ice will be traumatic, but more so are the revelations that follows.
We Do Not Part is very much a novel in two parts. The first documents Kyungha’s harrowing journey through a blizzard to find Inseon’s house. This section has some surreal and dreamlike qualities as Kyungha battles against the elements and darkness to find her way. The second half of the novel has the feel of a ghost story and it is hard to know what is real and what Kyungha is imagining. Memories of the massacre of civilians in Jeju in a supposed fight against communism, are revealed to Kyungha through a series of testimonies and documents. In particular there is a focus on Inseon’s family – both sides of which were affected by these events.
We Do Not Part is both beautiful and harrowing, the translation seeming to capture a sense of poetic imagery. Han Kang uses the persistent snow and to soften and slow down the momentum of the story which gathers weight as the scale and the callousness of an operation which wiped out whole villages and communities is slowly brought to light.
Information about the Jeju Island massacre was officially repressed and censored in Korea until 2000 when the Korean Government launched a formal investigation into these events. This led to an official apology from the Korean Government to victims and their families in 2003 and, in 2019, an apology from the South Korean police and defence ministry for their involvement. Han Kang is one of a number of Korean authors (Hwang Sok-yong is another), who are determined to ensure that these darker incidents and events of modern Korean history, and the people impacted by them, which had previously been repressed, are not forgotten.
We Do Not Part is not only an absorbing and effective elegiac novel. It stands as an important testament to and memory of a dark aspect of modern Korean history.

🗻 REVIEW 🗻

We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated by Emily Yae Won and Paige Aniyah Morris

Release Date: 6th February

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

📝 - One morning in December, Kyungha receives a message from her friend Inseon saying she has been hospitalized in Seoul and asking that Kyungha join her urgently. Airlifted to Seoul for an operation, Inseon has had to leave behind her pet bird. Bedridden, she begs Kyungha to take the first plane to Jeju to save the animal. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and snow squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save Inseon’s bird—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 which awaits her at her friend’s house. There, the long-buried story of Inseon’s family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in the archive painstakingly assembled at the house, documenting a terrible massacre on the island.

💭 - Wow. That was my first Han Kang read and I am now so looking forward to the rest of them. She has such an incredible way of writing that draws you in, and this story captured me so much that it took me less than 2 days to finish. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I started reading it - I had only glossed over the summary - and I think that helped really draw me in as I wasn’t sure where it was going. The stories of Inseon’s family, while harrowing, were done with such care and thought, and really opened my eyes to history of Korea that I wasn’t too familiar with. I’m now very interested in reading more about the Korean War, so any recs of good novels or non-fiction on this would be much appreciated! Highly recommend this one!

#hankang #wedonotpart #nobelprizeliterature #bookreview #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookreviewer #bookrecommendations #advancereaderscopy #netgalley #netgalleyreads

Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature last year so I thought perhaps that her writing might be difficult to approach; I couldn’t have been more wrong: it’s straightforward at the sentence level but rich in its descriptions and the emotions it evokes.
When we meet Kyungha, she is slowly making her way out of a deep crisis, following family separation and bereavement during which she isolated herself almost completely from the world. When her friend and former colleague Inseon is hospitalised in Seoul following an accident for which Kyungha feels some responsibility, she feels obliged to meet Inseon’s urgent request to rescue her budgerigar. She travels to Inseon’s home on the island of Jeju, south of the South Korean mainland, by plane, bus and foot in a snowstorm, racing the onset of one of her flooring migraines. I found beauty in the detail of Kyungha’s journey and days spent cut off from the world, echoing her earlier state but this time literal, in a rural house with no water or power after the storm. The weather is ever-present: wind, cold and – chiefly – snow in all its myriad glory.
She recalls previous visits to the house, Inseon’s stories of her childhood in Gwangju, and the documentary films she made about the uprising there and in Jeju, and the wars in Vietnam and Manchuria. Walking in the snow in Seoul and by candlelight in the hills of Jeju, Inseon tells her own family’s story from the Jeju uprising and associated massacres. Over the years the two had worked and travelled together, they had discussed a project Kyungha had envisioned in a dream: black tree trunks like grave markers in a flood tide that reminded her of people huddling in the snow.
Just as I was thinking there was no supernatural element to the story (as there is in Han Kang’s most famous work, The Vegetarian, and the short story from which it grew), in Part Two a seed of doubt is sown – what has Kyungha really experienced and what has she dreamt? Is she seeing ghosts? Or are we witnessing another possible reality? It’s not clear what is reality, what is dreamed and what is ghostly; no matter, as it’s compelling. Brava too to the translators e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris.

Han Kang is one of my FAVOURITE authors and thus, I was incredibly excited for her newest release after having read everything by her already translated into English.

I do think that this is unfortunately my least favourite from her yet. One thing I do absolutely adore about Han Kang and her craft is her incredible ability to document real historic periods with grace, consideration and so much power; this was no different. The pacing however, felt so incredibly slow and I never felt connected to our protagonist or any of the secondary characters despite the 'diary' style narrative. Needless to say though, there were many beautiful quotes in this and I'm still so thankful that I read it!

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for this eARC.

I feared I might be too late to hop on the Han Kang train but this was a scorching introduction to their talent and I am now desperately sourcing as many of her other books as I can. It has been a while since I last read a book so compulsively and I feel, from the opening chapter's visceral nightmare, until the final page, this book has its hooks in you. As opaque as the view through the novel's endless snow storms, this feels like a twisty, eerie midwinter dream that you wander through as breathless and lost as the narrator. Part fairy tale, part ghost story, it carries with it the history of a nation swaddled in the gauze of imagination and fiction and yet, at times, brutally exposed. I loved how little was answered and yet how much was shared in this novel and its themes of human memory, connection, destruction and revival.

As someone with very little knowledge of Korean history, perhaps impacted by how much of this information was suppressed, the backdrop of this novel is shocking and confronting. Everything is tainted by the memories of the Jeju 4.3 massacre of 1948 and the trauma that still exists on both a personal and national level. While you go on a perilous journey through a snowstorm with the protagonist to try to save her friend's bird, you also navigate the often tragic, always difficult journeys of those who experienced the massacre, both those who lived and those who died. As with any good midwinter tale, ghosts swirl up and die down along with the storm and yet, just as the ground freezes solid, their presence, their experiences are indelibly stained upon the land and upon Korea's national identity.

At times, this novel is almost as suffocating as the snow that blankets the ground - the stories unravel at a propulsive rate and you find yourself unable to look away while, like the protagonist, begging for it to end. I have never read a work of fiction which helps you to feel so palpably the true horror and scale of a massacre, and which forces you to address the privilege you have in being able to look away, in being able to put the book down, while also robbing you of that right by being so breathlessly unforgettable.

Han's writing is ethereal, lucid and exquisite - the imagery within the piece is skilful and the multiplicity of each image's meaning prompts the reader to delve into the complexities of these experiences, of the way history lingers. I particularly enjoyed the repeating motif of the water cycle - how this snow might once have touched, have covered the bodies of the dead, and the way the characters grapple with what this means. We do not part because we cannot? Because we are haunted by those lost in every natural cycle? Because time is impermeable - the same water molecules are both frozen and unfrozen at different points in time. Equally, the snow repeatedly covers the ground, the characters, people's actions in this book and so could it represent a complicity? A national agreement to hide the truth? Or that the truth has been smothered? While this book focusses on one atrocity, it poses so many questions around the executions and genocides taking place across the globe and it does so with the lightest touch, the most skilled phrasing.

An unforgettable introduction to Han Kang who is undoubtedly an author whose works I will delve into many times in the future!

4*

Han Kang’s latest translated work is a quiet yet powerful exploration of violence, trauma, suffering and humanity, that resists an easy interpretation.

The subject matter focuses on a series of brutal killings and massacres that began in Jeju Island in 1948, in which tens of thousands of people, including children, were killed in an attempt to stamp out communism. The actual reporting of these events was suppressed and it is likely that a western audience will know little about this part of South Korea’s history, myself included. This almost lends itself to Kang’s eerie storytelling, as the narrative shifts around from reporting and testimony, to ghost stories and dream sequences, all whilst retaining Kang’s efficient lyricism.

The historical events are filtered through two old friends - Kyungha, the narrator, and Inseon, her guide to Jeju Island and the generational trauma she experienced as the daughter of parents who survived the slaughter by chance. Whilst the historical events are horrifying, their friendship and love serve as a light to cut through humanity’s suffering. The novel may be bleak, but it is also beautiful and hopeful.

As always, Han Kang’s writing is gorgeous. The narrative itself keeps the reader in a liminal space as it jumps around characters, time and place, between dream and reality. The language perfectly mirrors this as she writes with a haunting poetry throughout. The novel opens with description of snow and crystals and these become a motif throughout the novel. This liminality allows Kang and the reader to grapple with difficult questions.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang
(Translated by e. yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris)
Han Kang’s We Do Not Part is an atmospheric and haunting novel that has stayed with me after reading.
The novel follows Kyungha, a writer struggling with debilitating migraines, depression and isolation. Her hospitalised friend, Inseon, begs her to journey through a brutal snowstorm to Jeju Island to rescue her pet bird. From Kyungha’s arrival in Jeju things start to get dream-like and ghostly.
In the second and third parts of the novel, Kyungha confronts the history of Inseon’s family. It brings together personal trauma with national tragedy, particularly the repressed horrors of the Jeju Uprising. Snow, not just the weather setting in the background, becomes a character- obscuring and revealing, bringing pain and comfort.
Han’s prose is beautiful yet restrained, and the translation by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris is incredible - capturing both the eerie beauty and emotional depth of the story.
Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Harrowing while at the same time hauntingly poetic. I read up about the Jeju massacre before starting this book, which helped as this is not a history I have studied at school and I know very little about it.

I loved following Kyunghaya, depressed and lonely, suffering from migraines, as she rushes to Jeju island from Seoul at the request of her long-time friend Inseon, lying in hospital. There was a dreamlike quality to this short novel, and the long journey in the snow to reach Jeju really helped build up to the last third of the book, which is even more dreamlike, and follows different timelines, both imagined and remembered, by various characters. Inseon's mum was extremely moving, her memories failing her as she unravels what happened to her and her family and to several hundred thousands of people. I found something touching in the shared history that Kyunghaya becomes involved in and in the friendship she and Inseon have, as they retrace the histories of Inseon's mum and of other elderly women.

It's a hard book to describe but it is certainly impactful and poignant.

Free ARC sent by Netgalley.

4★
“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?”

This is part of Kyungha’s dream, which is based on a dream the author had that inspired this book. The entire opening segment is almost exactly how the author recounted her dream in an NPR interview.

In the story, Kyungha says she dreamed this not long after her book about a massacre was published. She is suffering in sweltering summer heat with broken air conditioning, and when she finally sleeps, she’s dreaming snowy scenes that she thinks might be from her future. She sees the tide encroaching on the ‘gravestones’ and sites of bones that will be washed away.

Awake, she is so hot that she considers ending her life.

“The previous summer, as my private life began to crumble like a sugar cube dropped in water, back when the real partings that were to follow were only a premonition, I’d written a story titled ‘Farewell’, a story about a woman of snow who melts away under sleet. But that can’t be my actual, final farewell.”

She falls asleep on the floor only to dream so strongly of snow and the ‘graves’ that she knows she can’t give up – she has to do something about them.

Summer ends, and Kyungha is surprised by a text message from her close friend, Inseon, saying only her name: ‘Kyungha’. When she texts back, asking if everything is all right, she receives only: ‘Can you come right away?’

Inseon is a filmmaker with a focus on women and war, and the two young women have been planning to do a project together one day, making logs into standing “torsos” representing those who were massacred during WWII.

Inseon is now in a Seoul hospital, requiring urgent, continued care, and she presses Kyungha to please please please go to the little village on the island of Jeju where Inseon lives to save her last adored bird and stay in the house until Inseon is released.

The book opens with unbearable heat and moves to an almost unbelievable cold, all with an eerie, moody, haunting quality. There are dreamlike sequences that seem real to Kyungha.

In her NPR interview, Han Kang explains why there was such focus on snow.

“Snow; It falls between the sky and the earth and connecting the both. And it falls between the living and the dead, between light and darkness, between silence and memories. And I thought of the connection, the circular flow of water and air. We are all connected over this earth so I had this image of the snow. I wanted the snow to fall from beginning to end and I wanted even my characters to enter into that dream of snow.”

There is a lot of history – of which I admit I am ignorant. There are stories of horrifying massacres, people hiding in caves in the hills, the sorts of awful stories I’m more familiar with from Europe during WWII.

Her writing is absolutely compelling. I haven’t read any of her other work, but I have some idea of why the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to her.

The facts, the history, the descriptions, the dreamlike quality and moodiness are beautifully drawn, well worth five stars. But – and for me it is a big ‘but’ - sadly, I was never invested in the characters and their story.

Thanks to #NetGalley and Penguin UK for a copy of #WeDoNotPart for review.

The NPR interview the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrYj1Wt_U0w

We Do Not Part is a hauntingly beautiful story of friendship, grief and love. Subtly magical, and wholly poignant, it is packed with sharp intellectual commentary and emotional depth. I enjoyed the novel immensely, the references to the massacre were immensely powerful and brutal, confronting the reader with stark reality. I definitely feel this is a novel I will read again, there is just so much to unpack. I will be recommending!

A painfully haunting read for anyone who comes from a country of persecuted people.

Dark and harrowing, Kang blends the line between the real and surreal, giving the reader a sense of daze and confusion - ultimately reinforcing how we feel recalling atrocities of the past.

A thoroughly impactful novel.