We Do Not Part
A Novel
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4.3 • 7 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD, THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD, AND THE NBCC BARRIOS BOOK IN TRANSLATION PRIZE
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
ONE OF THE ATLANTIC'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORKER, TIME, THE ECONOMIST, THE GUARDIAN, SLATE, VULTURE, KIRKUS REVIEWS, BOOK RIOT, THE GLOBE AND MAIL, PEN AMERICA, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, BBC • ONE OF BOOKPAGE’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
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—“[A] masterpiece” (The Boston Globe)
“A haunting exploration of friendship amid historical trauma.”—Time
“A novel that is both disquieting and entrancing.”—The Economist
One winter morning in Seoul, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at the hospital. 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 darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.
Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully brings 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 pain—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Nobel Prize–winning South Korean literary sensation Han Kang (The Vegetarian) has written a poetic, emotionally powerful story about a little-understood chapter in her country’s history. In the present day, emotionally fragile novelist Kyungha receives an alarming phone call from her artist friend, who is in the hospital following an accident and needs Kyungha to travel to the South Korean island of Jeju to feed and water her pet bird. As Kyungha’s journey turns increasingly surreal, the novel goes back in time to 1948, when a search for Communists on the island turns into a nightmarish massacre of hundreds of thousands of civilians. A spiritual successor of sorts to Han’s earlier novel of wartime South Korea, Human Acts, We Do Not Part is both unblinking in its examination of the horrors of war and beautifully lyrical in how its characters manage to process their experiences. At times an unsettling read, at heart, this is an uplifting and thought-provoking story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kang (The Vegetarian) delivers an indelible exploration of Korea's historical traumas through the story of a writer who discovers how her friend'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. Kyungha spends her days alone in her apartment outside Seoul, where she suffers from migraines and nausea and is plagued by nightmares of a snowy hill where upright tree trunks resembling bodies are submerged by an advancing tide. One morning, she's unexpectedly contacted by her friend Inseon, who has been hospitalized in Seoul and begs Kyungha to fly to her home on Jeju to care for her bird, Ama, who will not survive long without food. Kyungha travels to Jeju during a fierce snowstorm, and upon her arrival is met by Inseon's apparition, who tells her about the torture of Inseon's father after his home was burned by the Korean military, and how Inseon's mother came home from a cousin's house to find her entire village executed—except for her brother, whose uncertain fate haunted her for years. In dreamy yet devastating prose, Kang details Inseon's evolving relationship with her late mother, whom Inseon cared for during her final years as she struggled with dementia and memories of the massacre. The result is a meticulously rendered portrait of friendship, mother-daughter love, and hope in the face of profound loss. Kang is at the top of her game.
