We Do Not Part

 

By Han Kang

Translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris

Published by Hogarth

 

About We Do Not Part

THE NEW NOVEL FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

 

“[Han Kang’s] intense poetic prose . . . confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”—The Nobel Committee for Literature, in the citation for the Nobel Prize

 

“[A] masterpiece.”—The Boston Globe

 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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 in 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.

 

About the Author

Han Kang was born in 1970 in South Korea. She is the author of The Vegetarian, winner of the International Booker Prize, as well as Human Acts, The White Book, Greek Lessons, and We Do Not Part. In 2024, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 

Praise

“A chilling reminder of the terrible invisibility of people and events that are removed from us in space and time.”—The New York Times

 

“A haunting exploration of friendship amid historical trauma.”—TIME

 

“A novelist and poet of tremendous feeling and precision . . . We Do Not Part [is] a beautiful, mysterious story built around . . . a pogrom on Jeju Island after the Korean War, told from the perspective of three women characters.”—The New Yorker

 

“One of the world’s most important writers.”—Los Angeles Times

 

“Astonishing . . . [We Do Not Part] is a rewarding endeavor, especially for readers familiar with Han’s oeuvre who can recognize it as a mosaic that artfully pieces together her long-simmering ideas on reckoning with historical atrocities, fighting to expose state-concealed truths and finding connection in our shared humanity despite inevitable suffering.”—San Francisco Chronicle

 

“[Kang] draws American readers into foreign calamities that their own forebears had a hand in creating, and then offers a very limited kind of redemption—the chance to discover, for themselves, that legacy of shame.”—The Atlantic

 

“[We Do Not Part] blows open the lid on a long-forgotten chapter of Korean history, celebrating the resiliency of life in the face of immense tragedy.”—Harper’s Bazaar

 

“It is pain—whether from large-scale acts of violence or quietly self-inflicted wounds—that gives [Han’s] writing its uncomfortable vitality.”—The Wall Street Journal

 

“[Han’s] abilities are at their most undeniable and radiant.”—BookPage

 

“A dream-narrative of history, remembrance, and friendship rendered in [Han’s] complex, lyrical prose.”—Literary Hub

 

“Poetic language expertly describes the mysterious geography of Jeju as Han movingly illustrates how the massacre affected survivors as well as subsequent generations. The memory of a devastating episode that must not be forgotten is revived.”—Library Journal, starred review

 

“[We Do Not Part gifts] audiences with tragic terror, luminous insight, and ethereal glimmers of hope.”—Booklist, starred review

 

“Even through the veil of translation, the quiet intricacy of the author’s prose glitters throughout . . . a mysterious novel about history and friendship [that] offers no easy answers.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

 

“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.”—Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies

 

“A disquietingly beautiful novel about the impossibility of waking up from the nightmare of history. Hang 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.”—Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Trust

 

“Haunting and dreamlike, this is a novel of secrets and silences.”—Silvia Moreno-Garcia, bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and The Seventh Seal of Salome

 

 

 

작별하지 않는다

2024 노벨문학상 수상작가, 한강 장편소설 

한강(지은이)/ 문학동네, 2021-09-09

 

2016년 <채식주의자>로 인터내셔널 부커상을 수상하고 2018년 <흰>으로 같은 상 최종 후보에 오른 한강 작가가 5년 만에 펴낸 장편소설이다. 2019년 겨울부터 이듬해 봄까지 계간 <문학동네>에 전반부를 연재하면서부터 큰 관심을 모았고, 그뒤 일 년여에 걸쳐 후반부를 집필하고 또 전체를 공들여 다듬는 지난한 과정을 거쳐 완성되었다.

 

본래 「눈 한 송이가 녹는 동안」(2015년 황순원문학상 수상작), 「작별」(2018년 김유정문학상 수상작)을 잇는 ‘눈’ 3부작의 마지막 작품으로 구상되었으나 그 자체 완결된 작품의 형태로 엮이게 된바, 한강 작가의 문학적 궤적에서 <작별하지 않는다>가 지니는 각별한 의미를 짚어볼 수 있다.

 

이로써 <소년이 온다>(2014), <흰>(2016), ‘눈’ 연작(2015, 2017) 등 근작들을 통해 어둠 속에서도 한줄기 빛을 향해 나아가는 인간의 고투와 존엄을 그려온 한강 문학이 다다른 눈부신 현재를 또렷한 모습으로 확인할 수 있게 되었다. 오래지 않은 비극적 역사의 기억으로부터 길어올린, 그럼에도 인간을 끝내 인간이게 하는 간절하고 지극한 사랑의 이야기가 눈이 시리도록 선연한 이미지와 유려하고 시적인 문장에 실려 압도적인 아름다움으로 다가온다.

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