A luminous and haunting exploration of historical memory, trauma and the importance of not forgetting, this astounding novel from the International Booker Prize-winning author of The Vegetarian follows a woman on a mission to fulfil a request from a sick friend which leads her on an unexpected collision course with the past.
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2024
Like a long winter’s dream, this haunting and visionary new novel from 2024 Nobel Prize winner Han Kang takes us on a journey from contemporary South Korea into its painful history
‘One of the most profound and skilled writers working on the contemporary world stage’ Deborah Levy
Beginning one morning in December, WE DO NOT PART traces the path of a young woman, Kyungha, as she travels from the city of Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island, to the home of her old friend Inseon. Hospitalised following an accident, Inseon has begged Kyungha to hasten there to feed her beloved pet bird, who will otherwise die.
Kyungha takes the first plane to Jeju, but a snowstorm hits the island the moment she arrives, plunging her into a world of white. Beset by icy wind and snow squalls, she wonders if she will arrive in time to save the bird – or even survive the terrible cold which envelops her with every step. As night falls, she struggles her way to Inseon’s house, unaware as yet of the descent into darkness which awaits her.
There, the long-buried story of Inseon’s family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in a painstakingly assembled archive documenting a terrible massacre on the island seventy years before.
We Do Not Part is a hymn to friendship, a eulogy to the imagination and above all an indictment against forgetting.
Translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 2928377302368
Number of pages: 240
Weight: 400 g
Dimensions: 222 x 138 x 25 mm
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