I didn't know what to expect going into We Do Not Part, because I never actually read the blurb before starting it. I just knew that I love Human Acts and the few pieces of Han Kang's short fiction that I've read, as well as the story "Heavy Snow" that appeared in The New Yorker late last year as an excerpt from this novel. I'd liked that piece a lot, and I really wanted to see the longer work that it came from.

It turns out that "Heavy Snow" is only sort of an excerpt from We Do Not Part. It takes pieces from a longer sequence - the majority of Part 1 of the novel, as it turns out - and abridges them, re-ordering and recontextualising them and adding new material to make the ellisions work. It's a seamless piece of work, and though "Heavy Snow" is a piece of this novel I think it's different enough that it stands alone. In its extended form here, that story takes on much more weight.

The first act, following Kyungha's journey from the hospital in Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island in the grip of an unending snow storm, is simply beautiful. It's quiet and contemplative but at the same time urgent and scary, and even though the stakes are on their face quite small - will Kyungha arrive at Inseon's house in time to prevent her pet bird from dying? - they're no less meaningful, underpinned as they are by the weight of years of friendship and obligation, by a history between these two characters that's shown to us only in small pieces.

The quiet beauty and escalating tension of Part 1 do an incredible job of priming us for the emotional impact of the rest of the novel. Once Kyungha reaches Inseon's home the story shifts into something that feels like a companion piece to Human Acts, as she is haunted by Inseon's past and discovers records around the Jeju uprising and massacre of 1948, in which the Korean government slaughtered thousands of civilians. I admittedly know very little about Korean history but, as with Human Acts, Han Kang presents the events she's concerned about in such a stark, unflinching way that it doesn't matter.
We Do Not Part's narrator is, herself, a writer who has previously written a novel about the massacre following the Gwangju uprising in 1980 - the same subject matter as Human Acts. Here Kyungha laments that she didn't tell the whole story in her book, that she allowed some of the atrocities to go unremembered. The final act of We Do Not Part grapples with ideas around forgetting and how we remember the dead, and how the past haunts the future.

This is a book with pain on every page, from Inseon's horrific injury at the beginning, to the frozen pain of Kyungha's journey and the uncovering of the terrible history in the back end of the novel. Kyungha, too, suffers with debilitating migraines, one of which grips her for most of the opening section of the novel. Both of the characters spend the entire book in pain that's exacerbated by their attempts to keep the past alive, and it would be easy to ask whether it's worth it. But the book closes with images that remind us that no matter how painful it may be, remembering is always an act of love.

We Do Not Part won the Prix Médicis étranger for its French translation, and I'll be very surprised if this English rendering doesn't appear on the International Booker Prize shortlist later this year.

I had promised myself not to read anything more by this author after “The Vegetarian,” but since she was then given the Nobel Prize for Literature, I tried to give her another chance. Netgalley then sent me this novel, dreamlike but based on true historical events that happened in Korea just after the end of World War II, the Korea of M.A.S.H. to be clear. I can't say it disturbed me like the previous book, but it certainly was not an easy read. This rarefied but heavy atmosphere, with the snowstorm, the cold and the absence of light, the flashbacks of Isehon's mother's past, the very peculiar protagonist and the two birds made everything almost chilling, nearly a horror book. So I would say that I tried, but I am definitely not able to appreciate even this Nobel Prize for literature.

Mi ero ripromessa di non leggere piú niente di questa autrice dopo "La vegetariana", ma siccome poi le hanno dato il Nobel per la letteratura, ho provato a darle un'altra chance. Netgalley quindi mi ha mandato questo romanzo, onirico ma basato su fatti storici veri accaduti in Corea appena dopo la fine della seconda guerra mondiale, la Corea di M.A.S.H. per capirsi. Non posso dire che mi abbia disturbato come il libro precedente, ma certamente non é stato una lettura semplice. Questa atmosfera rarefatta ma pesantissima, con la tempesta di neve, il freddo e l'assenza di luce, i flashback del passato della madre di Isehon, la protagonista molto particolare e i due uccelli hanno resto tutto quasi agghiacciante, quasi un libro d'orrore. Direi quindi che io ci ho provato, ma sicuramente non sono in grado di apprezzare nemmeno questo nobel per la letteratura.

I received from the Publisher a digital advanced review copy in exchange for a honest review.

The latest (to be translated into English novel) by the 2024 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature – due to be published later in 2025.

Overall I would say that this might be the perfect place to start with the Nobel Laureate as it is a perfect (and it has to be said deliberate) combination of her two strongest other translated novels – the austere, white dominated imagery of “The White Book” and the traumatic investigation into South Korea’s dark post war history of military massacres (something perhaps which will appear much less at discard with the world of K-Pop and bao buns with events in late 2024) which featured in “Human Acts”.

The novel in fact opens with its narrator Kyungha haunted by a dream of black tree trunks (which she sense are graves or possibly even people) dusted in snow on a dark shoreline – a recurring dream she initially traces to her own authorship of a novel which is effectively “Human Acts” (and a dream which Han Kang herself also experienced).

We learn that over time (time like reality versus dreams is a fluid concept in the novel) she had discussed with a close friend Inseon (they initially met with Inseon as photographer to Kyungha’s artistic writing) – who lives with her mother on the volcanic holiday Island of Jeju and has largely given up her art documentary film career to be a carpenter – a joint project to recreate Kyungha’s dream.

In the present day – when Kyungha has largely abandoned her idea – she is urgently summoned by Inseon to a Seoul hospital where Inseon is receiving critical treatment for two severed finger tips (finger tips and blood are one of a number of recurring images): Inseon was medevac’d to the mainland after her accident and wants Kyungha to travel urgently to her home on Jeju where she fears her budgie may be dying.

The rest of the first part of the novel is perhaps the strongest of the book in a literary/figurative – documenting Kyungha’s increasingly difficult and ultimately it seems unsuccessful trip across a snowbound Jeju to Inseon’s home.

Part II changes the novel significantly and is perhaps best explained by the author herself in her Nobel lecture: “If the first part is a horizontal journey that follows 9 the narrator, Kyungha, from Seoul to her friend Inseon’s home in the Jeju uplands through heavy snow towards the pet bird she has been tasked with saving, then the second part follows a vertical path that leads Kyungha and Inseon down to one of humanity’s darkest nights — to the winter of 1948 when civilians on Jeju were slaughtered — and into the ocean’s depths”

Kyungha wakes in Inseon’s house – only to find that both the bird (who she remembers burying) and Inseon (who should be in hospital) are present. She has already realised that Inseon has been -unbeknownst to her – carrying on with their aborted project and that her injury was connected with her cutting and shaling of the black tree trunks. At the same time, we learn via Inseon’s memories of her mother (often with her mother addressing us directly) of her mother’s involvement in tracing the covered-up and suppressed history of the Jeju 4:3 massacres including various direct family involvements.

This second part is very powerful indeed although I perhaps have two criticisms: firstly there are rather too many heavy handed early references to effectively “is this a dream”/”is this real” which are not really necessary when a novel is so obviously blurring images, dreams and reality; secondly at times the exposition of Jeju’s troubled history can be a little too heavy – I would have preferred more left to my own research.

A brief third part – where Inseon and Kyungha complete their act of remembrance ends this excellent (if slightly flawed) novel strongly.

“That is how death avoided me. Like an asteroid though to be on a collision course avoids Earth by a hair’s breadth, hurtling past at a furious velocity that knows neither regret nor hesitation.”

Han Kang’s We Do Not Part is an intricately woven but complicated narrative that seeks to question the unsettling beginnings of the Jeju massacre, when Kyungha visits her friend Inseon after a terrible wood-chopping accident. 

The novel's introduction was intriguing, but as it slowly revealed more, my interest waned. At most times, I was confused. The book’s main flaw was the narration—constant perspective shifts and unquoted dialogue let this book down in navigating the story. Where timelines intersected, the book was an overall mess. 

Another flaw I had with the book was the detachment of the characters, especially Kyungha. That could have been an intentional move on her part. However, I felt that her characterisation was lacking. We only witnessed her monologues and all before her personality fizzled out within the contemporary setting.

As this is my first Han Kang book, it was a shame to find this a disappointing read.

The standouts for me were the birds, Ami and Ama. Yeah, that is right. The animals at the beginning somehow met an unfortunate end within the book.

[Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for a copy of an ARC in exchange for an honest review.]

I have read all Han Kang's works currently translated into English and have enjoyed them all, but I think We Do Not Part might be my favourite so far. Like Human Acts, this book focuses on a terrible historical event, in this case one that took place on Jeju island in the late 1940s. As such there is a lot of stark darkness within the work in terms of the subject matter, but this is contrasted with the lyrical poetics of the prose. Thus we drift back and forth between the terrible details of the events, more of which come to the fore as the book progresses, and the atmospheric description and philosophical pondering of the narrator as she navigates the emotions of her own life and those she experiences as she uncovers the story of events of Jeju, to which her friend has a personal connection. Elements of Human Acts weave through this work, and I feel that Kyungha and Han Kang sometimes overlap in this regard. This is a book both beautiful and horrifying, and I think that's where Han Kang's strength lies as a writer: the way she can combine the two. There is a deep sense of humanity in all her works, and the exploration of themes that are really universal, though seemingly focused on her country's history. I certainly hope more of her works will be translated in the future (or that my Korean will improve enough to read them in the original), and I am giving this book five stars.

(This review will go live on my blog, Goodreads and social media on 17 February, as per your preference to hold reviews until a week prior to publication. Links for where the review will be on Goodreads and my blog once published are below.)

This feels like a culmination of Kang's work to date. Echoes of Human Acts, The Vegetarian, and The White Book create a feeling of isolation, cold, and the lines between reality and dream. Han Kang is a true master of her craft, weaving metaphors and imagery together seamlessly to tell the story of Jeju 4:3. This book does have a sporadic storytelling style that switches between historical, thriller, literary, and so on, but maintains the metaphors and imagery that create a cohesiveness as a whole. I would recommend this for anyone who has read Kang before, but for those new to the author, I would recommend reading The Vegetarian and Human Acts before to have an extra layer of understanding to this book.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated by Emily Yae Won and Paige Aniyah Morris, is an intimate and profoundly moving exploration of love, memory, and trauma. Through the interconnected lives of three women, Han delicately uncovers the shadows of Korea's dark history, particularly the Jeju uprising and its aftermath. The narrative blends dreamlike sequences with reality, a style that might initially seem disorienting but ultimately captivates with its poetic depth. Though painful in its portrayal of historical atrocities, the novel is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, showcasing love, friendship, and the pursuit of truth. Han's elegant and accurate handling of historical trauma sheds light on long-suppressed events, offering both a poignant literary experience and a vital historical reckoning.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my free digital ARC of the latest Han Kang novel to be translated into English! Very exciting after she won the Nobel Prize this year, and I feel like this book really does encapsulate why she won, even if I *personally* wouldn’t consider it a perfect novel. This book delves deep into the tragic history of the Jeju uprising and the massacres that then took place and were shamefully covered up by the Korean government for a LONG, long time.

It can be a bit tricky to follow (don’t recommend reading it during the holidays when you’re easily distracted like me!), as it jumps around in time and perspective, splicing historic record with the present day narrative.

I was loving it to begin with - Kyungha receives a message from a friend who’s been hospitalised after a carpentry injury, asking her to go and take care of her bird while she recovers. Kyungha begins the arduous journey through treacherous weather to Inseon’s house, where dreamlike mirages begin to occur - I’m still not fully certain I understood everything that was going on, but it was certainly moving.

The language was always gorgeous, translated by E Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris. Definitely do try and read it in wintertime, as the imagery is stunning.

2025 will be the year I also finally read the rest of Kang’s backlist, since I’ve only read this one and The Vegetarian YEARS ago 👀

A winter novel through and through. I was specifically taken with the first half of this novel, the bus journey through the snowy landscape is just very compelling in a quiet way.

The second half is delves more into historical events through a personal lense, this part is very harrowing.

Between 1948 and 1950 an estimated 30,000 inhabitants of the small Korean island of Jeju were murdered as part of a scorched earth policy to eradicate presumed Communist rebels on the island. Entire villages within an established perimeter were burnt down and men, women and children executed on beaches and in caves.

For decades, the government-led massacre was swept under the carpet, but since the early 2000s a truth commission has carried out an independent investigation and the horrible facts have been documented and brought to light.

Han Kang takes on the difficult task of fictionalising the 'Jeju massacre', and she pulls it off. 'We Do Not Part' is not a historical novel though, it retains Han Kang's unique style, playing with dreams and supernatural elements and also the vivid descriptions of excruciating pain and cruelty.

As in The Vegetarian and Human Acts we have a female protagonist, Kyungha, unable to cope with the demands of normal life. One day, Kyungha receives a call from her artist friend, Inseon, who needs her help urgently - she has sown off her fingers. The second half of the novel is more engaged, as it largely describes the massacre by way of presentating the research carried out by Inseon and discovered by Kyungha.

I found it really beautifully done - the snowy, dreamlike island with its silent secrets and the friendship between the two women struggling to find a way to recover and remember.

I have been putting this book off because I love Han Kangs other books but at the same time find them quite hard going. She’s very descriptive and really shows the reader what she wants to be seen.
I probably enjoyed this novel more than Kangs others with great characters and storyline.

This is my first Han Kan book and I will definitely be reading all of the others that are published in English. The writing was beautiful and the descriptions of place, the setting, the snow was lyrical and haunting. The tale of friendship and memory was stunning and I could not put this book down. A simple story to follow but it packs a punch which more on the history of the island. I really recommend this one.

Here is another one of Han Kang's books that inspires a passionate review and recommendation, but leaves me gripped with mournful introspection.

We Do Not Part is an ode to friendship, sisterhood, motherhood, and the circular remembrances that connect us to both suffering and survival. The book is divided into three parts, detailing (on the surface) the story of a troubled young woman who travels to Jeju Island to save her injured friend's beloved pet bird, and ends up unpacking the gruesome circumstances of the Jeju 4.3 Massacre of 1948. Han Kang is well-versed in recounting tragedies and massacres that are forgotten by history (at least outside Korea) in beautiful, poetic, evocative prose. Her writing goes beyond evocative to hypnotic in this work, with the veil between reality and dreams drawn back in an experimental narrative that could have become nonsensical quickly but ended up poignant as it tied together all the threads of the story. Ultimately, the story pierced through my heart, and I know this is one I would go beyond recommending to others. I know I will reread this someday and try to divine meaning through its superbly translated text again.

4.5/5 stars rounded up. A compelling read, repetitive at times, hard-hitting at times. I might like this better than Human Acts, and both can be read as companion novels. No wonder these novels resulted in a Nobel for the author.

I found this book extremely difficult, which is an insane way to start a book review... I really did.

I have been in awe of Han Kang for a few years, ever since I stumbled upon The Vegetarian. I'm also a huge fan of Human Acts - but my favourite by far is the White Book. The day I received the ARC for this book was the day Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. She truly, truly deserves it. When I said this book is difficult, I truly meant it. You can choose to read this book on the surface level but then you are pulled into the deep metaphors, the heart-breaking imagery and the echoes of history.

I don't want to say much more because I'll spoil it. I found this book hard. It makes us confront difficult parts of history and makes us deal with grief in a way that not author has ever done previously.

Why do you read? I read to travel—both geographically and through time. Sometimes, it’s to escape, to immerse myself in lives that will never be mine. Other times, it’s to revisit places I’ve experienced or periods of my life that a novel can cast in a new light. I enjoy learning something new about the world we live in and the lives we lead. Han Kang’s novel achieves this in spades. Reading it opened my eyes to historical events I knew nothing about and transported me to the cold, snowy landscapes of rural Korea.

The story begins when the narrator is summoned to the hospital bedside of her old friend Inseon, with the intriguing instruction to bring her identity card. From there, she is sent on a mission to feed Inseon’s bird—a task that sets her on a journey through harsh weather and rugged terrain, while gradually unraveling the story of Inseon’s mother and the harrowing experiences of the Jeju islanders in the 1950s. The novel explores the bonds that hold us together: friendship, family, love, memory, and the pervasive ripples of history.

Han Kang’s writing immerses the reader in the cold and snow of Korea’s island landscapes. While I usually enjoy footnotes, it is a mark of the quality of the translation that I didn’t find myself missing them here. Korean terms are mostly within the text, and Google came to my aid for the ones that weren‘t. Actually, this novel has set me off on a internet rabbit hole, reading all about the history of Korea. I imagine the horrifying historical events Han Kang depicts are widely known in Korea, but I was completely unaware of them. This book made me acutely conscious of my ignorance about the Korean War and the atrocities committed by the South Korean government, frequently with U.S. support.

This is a novel I’d recommend to lovers of literary fiction and historical fiction alike.

One of those books that feels impossible to give an arbitrary rating to. On the one hand, Kang has written an incredibly deft novel about the Jeju Massacre in 1948, on the other, she has written an abstract novel that reads like sand falling through your fingers. Considering the novel's 400 page weight, there's not much to be said about where the pages go: a large swathe of the novel details the narrator waiting at a bus stop in a snowstorm, then walking through the snow, in the attempt to save her friend's budgie. The final hundred pages or so details the dreamlike investigation into her friend's family history and the Jeju Uprising. It is a book full of quiet but poignant images: a budgie hushing as soon as a cover is thrown over its cage, endless snowfall, shadows moving on walls, logs of wood painted black, a bus crawling through the snowstorm, missing fingers... These images all drift, like a snowstorm itself, and carry us through the incredibly weightless narrative. Like the movie planned but never made, the novel reads like an assortment of slides or images, hauntingly quiet, that flicker before your eyes. I can't say I 'liked' the book; I was unnerved by it, sometimes confused by it, but ultimately impressed by Kang's ability to write a novel about this diabolical historical event in a seemingly directionless and airy narrative. What persists in my mind most of all are the black logs standing in the snow, the shadows on the walls and the silencing of a bird.

Thank you to Penguin for the advance copy for review. We Do Not Part is published in English in the UK in February 2025.

The story it's dark and in some parts quite graphic but it's all part of the story. The writing style is beautiful and it just pulls you in the story and it haunts you.

Interesting and riveting.

Going to be the subject of my February newsletter to coincide with the release. I will share that when it is published.

Absolutely excellent book, and Han Kang just keeps on shining. Deeply thematic and made me think a lot

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for my ARC.

This is my second Han Kang novel, and I am still undecided if her work is for me, having previously read Greek Lessons and feeling not much at all. Don't get me wrong, the writing is gorgeous, I just feel like a lot of it goes over my head and can sometimes be difficult to follow. I am very undecided about this book personally, but I know this will be right up a lot of people's streets.