We Do Not Part

{{Short description|2021 novel by Han Kang}} {{family name hatnote|Han||lang=Korean}}{{Infobox book | author = Han Kang | isbn = 978-0593595459 | isbn_note = 9788954682152 | oclc = 1482701289 | website = {{Official|https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451666/we-do-not-part-by-kang-han/9780241600269}} | pub_date = September 9, 2021 (Korean) August 23, 2023 (French) January 21, 2025 (English) | pages = 332 (Korean) 336 (French) 272 (English) | translator = Choi Gyungran, Pierre Bisiou (French) e'''.''' yaewon, Paige Aniyah Morris (English) | language = Korean | country = South Korea | name = We Do Not Part: A Novel | genre = Literary fiction, Historical fiction | publisher = Munhakdongne (Korean) Grasset (French) Hogarth Press (English) | preceded_by = Greek Lessons | image = "We Do Not Part" by Han Kang book cover.jpg | award = '''French''' * Prix Medicis for Foreign Literature * Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature }}

'''''We Do Not Part: A Novel''''' ({{Korean|hangul=작별하지 않는다|rr=Jagbyeolhaji anhneunda|lit=''No goodbye''}}) is a 2021 novel by South Korean novelist Han Kang, published by Munhak.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Han |first=Kang |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1267975909 |title=Chakpyŏl haji annŭnda |date=2021 |publisher=Munhak Tongne |isbn=978-89-546-8215-2 |edition=1-p'an |series=Munhak Tongne changp'yŏn sosŏl |location=Kyŏnggi-do P'aju-si |oclc=on1267975909}}</ref> The novel follows a woman named Kyungha as she travels to Jeju Island on behalf of her friend, Inseon, and reflects upon the legacy of the Jeju massacre.<ref name="Millet">{{cite news |last=Millet |first=Lydia |date=January 17, 2025 |title=In Han Kang’s Latest, a Quixotic Bird Rescue Expedition Turns Tragic |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/books/review/han-kang-we-do-not-part.html |access-date=May 11, 2025 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> Han considers the novel to form "a pair" with her previous work, ''Human Acts''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hwang |first=Dong-hee |date=2024-10-10 |title=Exploring works of Han Kang |url=https://m.koreaherald.com/article/3490903 |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=Korea Herald |language=en}}</ref>

In 2023, a French translation by Choi Gyungran and Pierre Bisiou was published by Éditions Grasset. It went on to won the Prix Médicis for Foreign Literature in 2023, making Han the first Korean author to receive the prize.<ref name=":1" /> In the same year, the novel was shortlisted for the Prix Femina.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-10-28 |title=Han Kang's novel shortlisted for 2 prestigious French awards |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/culture/2024/12/135_362044.html |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=The Korea Times |language=en}}</ref> Han also received the Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature for the novel in 2024.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Han Kang wins Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature |url=https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20240302/4783423/1 |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=동아일보 |language=en}}</ref>

An English translation by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, published by Hogarth Press, was released on January 21, 2025.<ref name=Millet/><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Han |first1=Kang |title=We do not part |last2=yaewon |first2=e |last3=Morris |first3=Paige Aniyah |date=2025 |publisher=Hogarth |isbn=978-0-593-59547-3 |edition= |location=London; New York, NY}}</ref>

== Plot == Kyungha is a writer living away from her family to work on her new novel. She suffers from insomnia and is plagued by nightmares. Among these is one recurrent dream–that of snow-covered trees shaped like human beings. The nightmares began when she was working on her previous novel, which portrayed a civilian massacre resulting from state-sponsored violence. One day, Kyungha receives a text message from her old friend, Inseon, asking her to visit the hospital where she has been admitted. Kyungha knows Inseon from her days of working as a freelance videographer. Later, Inseon moved to Jeju Island to look after her mother, who suffered from dementia. She quit professional videography and opened a small carpentry workshop next to her house, and earned her living by selling furniture.

At the hospital, Kyungha learns that Inseon severed her fingers at the woodworking machine a few days back. Inseon pleads with Kyungha to head to her place in Jeju to look after her pet bird, Ama, who might die of thirst and starvation if not tended to immediately. Kyugha flies to Jeju, and journey's to Inseon's house amidst a blizzard. She reminisces about her time with Inseon. One time, Inseon revealed to Kyungha that as a teenager, she ran away to Seoul as she had begun to despise her single mother. She was met with an accident and almost died. When she opened her eyes in the hospital, her mother was sitting by her side. During this time, her mother confided a secret that her village had been massacred by police and soldiers, and that only she and her eldest sister survived, as they had been away.

By the time Kyungha reaches Inseon’s village, it’s already dark. On her way to Inseon’s house, Kyugha loses her way, falls into a dry stream and passes out. Once she regains her consciousness, she rushes to Inseon’s house only to find that Ama is already dead. She places Ama in a tin box and buries her.

There’s a power outage in the village due to the blizzard. This means the boiler heating the house can’t be operated. In the freezing cold, Kyungha begins to hallucinate. The line between reality and imagination blurs. Ama, the dead bird, returns to its cage. Inseon miraculously appears in the house as well. She shows Kyungha archival material she has been gathering on the Jeju Massacre. It’s revealed that Inseon’s uncle went into hiding during the massacre and was later captured and sent to a penitentiary. He was later killed and buried in a coal mine. Inseon’s mother spent years searching for his remains.

The novel concludes with Inseon's vanishing, leaving Kyungha to ponder if her entire experience was a hallucination as she lay dying in the dry stream or as she froze to death inside Inseon’s house.

== Jeju massacre == {{Main|Jeju massacre}} thumb|A monument to the victims of the Jeju massacre at Jungmun Saekdal Beach

=== History === Immediately after World War II and Korean liberation from the Empire of Japan, the United States moved to establish rule on Jeju Island through the newly formed United States Army Military Government in Korea which intended to prevent the rise of communism. As a result, the government's restrictive, sometimes militant policies led to social and political unrest.<ref name=":0" /> In particular, on March 1, 1947, Jeju citizens demonstrated in celebration of the March 1st Movement, leading to an incident of police brutality in which six people were shot and killed.<ref name="2003report">{{cite web |author=The National Committee for the Investigation of the Truth about the Jeju April 3 Incident |date=December 15, 2003 |title=The Jeju April 3 Incident Investigation Report |url=https://jeju43peace.or.kr/report_eng.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921114226/http://www.jeju43peace.or.kr/report_eng.pdf |archive-date=September 21, 2015 |access-date=August 17, 2015 |publisher=Office of the Prime Minister, Republic of Korea}}</ref> Through early 1948, including on April 3, 1948, communist rebels ushered in a wave of violence across Jeju Island which the ruling government failed to intervene on. In addition, massive protests—including violent actions by right-wing militants—had been forming against an upcoming United States-run election on May 10 that would potentially establish the First Republic of Korea.<ref name="UN2">{{cite web |year=2007 |title=United Nations Resolution 112: The Problem of the Independence of Korea |url=https://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/2/ares2.htm |access-date=March 29, 2009 |publisher=United Nations}}</ref> The republic ultimately formed after May, and afterward, the newly elected Syngman Rhee moved to militarily suppress rebel violence on Jeju Island with support from the United States. Violence on the island thus worsened by 1949.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Letman |first=Jon |date=2023-04-03 |title=75 Years After Jeju 4.3 Massacre, Koreans Want a US Apology |url=https://inkstickmedia.com/75-years-after-jeju-4-3-massacre-koreans-want-a-us-apology/ |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=Inkstick |language=en}}</ref> Historians have discussed the true death toll of the Jeju massacre, with estimates in the tens of thousands of lives.<ref>{{Cite web |title=South Korea's Forgotten Anti-Communist Killings |url=https://www.thedial.world/articles/news/issue-9/south-korea-jeju-uprising-anti-communist-massacre |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=The Dial |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Novel === ''We Do Not Part'', mostly taking place on Jeju Island decades after the Jeju massacre, makes mention of the island's history as the protagonist, Kyungha, travels through it on behalf of her friend, Inseon. The book also alludes to the violence of the Manchukuo Imperial Army, the Bodo League massacre, and the involvement of South Korea during the Vietnam War. In her lecture delivered as a laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Han stated,<blockquote>Whereas, until the autumn of 2021, when ''We Do Not Part'' was published, I had considered these two problems to be the ones at my core: Why is the world so violent and painful? And yet how can the world be this beautiful? For a long time, I believed that the tension and internal struggle between these sentences was the driving force behind my writing.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/han/lecture/ |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=NobelPrize.org |language=en-US}}</ref></blockquote>Han's work as a novelist has historically attempted to approach various incidents of violence in South Korea's history after the Second World War. Her novel, ''Human Acts'', similarly concerned the legacy of the Gwangju Uprising.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kim |first=Victoria |date=December 6, 2024 |title=Atrocities Made a South Korean City Infamous. A Novelist Made It Immortal. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/world/asia/gwangju-massacre-human-acts-han-kang.html |work=The New York Times}}</ref> In ''The Yale Review'', following Han's awarding of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, writer and professor Yung In Chae stated, regarding this novel and Han's others:<blockquote>This is the power of Han Kang: With little more than paper and ink, she acts as a conduit for the memories of generations that suffered state violence, passing them on to generations that inherited these traumas but not necessarily the long-suppressed facts beneath them. She makes that pain legible, indelible, meaningful.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Yung In Chae: "Why Han Kang's Nobel Matters" |url=https://yalereview.org/article/han-kang-nobel-prize |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=The Yale Review |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>

== Production == After writing ''Human Acts'', Han experienced a series of "haunting" nightmares involving countless dark tree trunks, set against a snowy landscape that was being swallowed by the sea. She stumbled upon Jeju and its history during her attempts to interpret these images, eventually concluding that they were a metaphor for "time and remembrance".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kim |first1=Victoria |title=A Nobel Laureate Who Mines Her Country’s Nightmares, and Her Own |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/world/asia/han-kang-jeju-book.html |access-date=2025-01-25 |work=The New York Times |date=2025-01-21}}</ref> Han stated that she worked on the novel over the course of seven years and occasionally expressed fears to her editor that she would not be able to finish the book due to its heavy topics. She then stated that completing it was her "happiest moment".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Jae-yeon |first=Woo |date=2023-11-14 |title=After award-winning book on tragic history, Han Kang loves to go more personal, upbeat {{!}} Yonhap News Agency |url=https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20231114009500315 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231121113915/https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20231114009500315 |archive-date=2023-11-21 |access-date=2024-12-17 |work=Yonhap News Agency |language=en |url-status=live }}</ref>

''We Do Not Part'' has undergone several different titles prior to its English translation. Many English, Korean, and French publications have referred to the book as ''I Do Not Bid Farewell''.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-03-01 |title=Han Kang's 'I Do Not Bid Farewell' wins French literature award |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/culture/2024/11/135_369809.html |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=The Korea Times |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2024-10-10 |title=When Han Kang, the 2024 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, spoke to Le Monde |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2024/10/10/when-han-kang-the-2024-winner-of-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-spoke-with-le-monde_6728971_30.html |access-date=2024-12-17 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Bartholomew |first=Jem |date=2024-10-15 |title='I emerged painfully transformed from her books': Han Kang readers on her Nobel literature prize |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/15/i-emerged-painfully-transformed-from-her-books-han-kang-readers-on-her-nobel-literature-prize |access-date=2024-12-17 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> After winning the Prix Médicis for Foreign Literature in 2023, Han stated that the English translation would be published under the same name as the French translation, ''Impossibles Adieux'', or ''Impossible Goodbyes''.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Acclaimed author calls history 'question of human nature' : Korea.net : The official website of the Republic of Korea |url=https://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/Culture/view?articleId=241981 |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=www.korea.net |language=en}}</ref> In an interview with the Nobel Foundation, Han referred to the book both by its official English title as well as ''I Do Not Bid Farewell'' and ''Impossible Goodbyes''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/han/interview/ |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=NobelPrize.org |language=en-US}}</ref>

On November 10, 2024, an excerpt of the English translation appeared in ''The New Yorker'', titled "Heavy Snow".<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Kang |first=Han |date=2024-11-10 |title="Heavy Snow," by Han Kang |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/18/heavy-snow-fiction-han-kang |access-date=2024-12-15 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>

== Critical reception ==

=== Korean === Son Yun-seo wrote, for ''Sideview'', that Han was able to powerfully articulate the Jeju massacre as an unforgettable tragedy that still deserved attention in the present day. In particular, Son drew a connection between Inseon's constant pricking of her finger to keep its nerves alive with the bigger picture of constantly never forgetting to mourn the lives lost in the Jeju massacre.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-04-17 |title=[청년시선-나의 인생작] 책 '작별하지 않는다' 리뷰 |url=https://www.sideview.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=13467 |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=사이드뷰 |language=ko}}</ref>

Sanjini Publishing House observed two of the book's strongest points as being the Jeju massacre but also Han's attention to the image of snow. The reviewer argued that snow was used in order to join past and present in various scenes of the book including Kyungha's snow-covered face upon falling unconscious, as well as Inseon's family members removing snow from corpses to identify them. Ultimately, the reviewer concluded that the novel, like Han's other novels, exposed South Korea's complicated relationship to historical violence.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-04-01 |title=잊을 수 없는, 잊어서는 안되는 이야기 『작별하지 않는다』서평 |url=https://sanzinibook.tistory.com/4408 |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=부산에서 책 만드는 이야기 : 산지니출판사 블로그 |language=ko}}</ref>

A reviewer at Sungkyunkwan University stated that the book's purpose was not to directly show the events of the Jeju massacre but rather to convey its horror through characters like Inseon's family members—though, to the reviewer, the events still proved to be horrific even through indirect storytelling.<ref>{{Cite web |title=작별하지 않는다 (한강 장편소설) {{!}} 성균관대학교 오거서 |url=https://book.skku.edu/%EC%9E%91%EB%B3%84%ED%95%98%EC%A7%80-%EC%95%8A%EB%8A%94%EB%8B%A4-%ED%95%9C%EA%B0%95-%EC%9E%A5%ED%8E%B8%EC%86%8C%EC%84%A4/ |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=}}</ref>

After Han's awarding of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, South Korean sales of ''We Do Not Part'', as well as Han's other novels, skyrocketed.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Park |first=Ju-min |last2=Lee |first2=Joyce |date=2024-10-10 |title=Nobel Prize winner Han Kang's books fly off the shelves in South Korea |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nobel-prize-winner-han-kangs-books-fly-off-shelves-south-korea-2024-10-11/ |work=Reuters}}</ref> Online retailer Yes24 specifically reported a "9000-fold increase" in sales of ''We Do Not Part'' following the Nobel Foundation's announcement.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-10-13 |title=Han Kang's Nobel Prize boosts book market |url=https://m.koreaherald.com/article/3492622 |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=m.koreaherald.com |language=en}}</ref> Bookstores initially struggled to keep up with demand, thus placing the novel on backorder, and many copies were subsequently sold on secondhand websites with marked up prices.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kyung-min |first=No |date=2024-10-13 |title=Han Kang's works fetch premium prices for limited editions |url=https://www.koreaherald.com/article/3492735 |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=The Korea Herald |language=en}}</ref>

=== French === Thierry Clermont, writing for ''Korean Literature Now'', stated "''Impossibles Adieux'' is an entrancing work, one that casts a subtle but hypnotic spell... In its pages we find lessons in comradeship, friendship, an acknowledgement of what is kept and lost between generations, as well as the importance and burden of that transmission—and of love, which can also be a source of 'terrible pain.'" He then compared Han's writing style to that of Yasunari Kawabata and W. G. Sebald and observed the novel's "strange and sometimes disturbing atmosphere, a kind of gentle, muffled space between fantasy and reality... all sorts of images and dreams."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Korea |first=L. T. I. |title=Impossibles Adieux: A Tragic Yet Tender Journey Into the Depths of Winter |url=https://www.kln.or.kr/features/reviewsView.do?bbsIdx=2044ing,Yasunari%20Kawabata%20and%20W.G.%20Sebald. |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=Korean Literature Now - KLN |language=ko}}</ref>

=== English === In a starred review, ''Kirkus Reviews'' called the book "A mysterious novel about history and friendship offers no easy answers" and stated "Even through the veil of translation, the quiet intricacy of the author’s prose glitters throughout" with particular attention to Han's descriptions of snow. The reviewer also mentioned Han's subtle interweaving of Korean history, in particular its history of violence, as the protagonist Kyungha makes her journey to a Jeju Island village on behalf of her friend Inseon.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/han-kang/we-do-not-part/ |title=We Do Not Part |publisher=Kirkus Reviews |language=en}}</ref>

Also in a starred review, ''Publishers Weekly'' called the book "an indelible exploration of Korea’s historical traumas" in its tackling of the Jeju massacre, which took place from 1948 to 1949, and remarked on the "dreamy yet devastating prose" rendered by Han and translated by e. and Morris. Ultimately, the reviewer concluded it was "a meticulously rendered portrait of friendship, mother-daughter love, and hope in the face of profound loss. Han is at the top of her game."<ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=We Do Not Part by Han Kang |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780593595459 |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=Publishers Weekly}}</ref>

Many publications, like ''The Atlantic'' and ''The Boston Globe'', remarked on Han's further tackling of South Korean history in a similar fashion to ''Human Acts''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Shulevitz |first=Judith |date=2025-01-14 |title=Where Han Kang’s Nightmares Come From |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/han-kang-we-do-not-part-book-review/681111/ |access-date=2025-01-16 |work=The Atlantic |language=en |issn=2151-9463}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Oldweiler |first=Cory |date=2015-01-14 |title=In Han Kang’s latest, old friends revisit wartime dreams - The Boston Globe |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/14/arts/in-han-kangs-latest-old-friends-revisit-wartime-dreams/ |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=BostonGlobe.com |language=en-US}}</ref> Leigh Haber, writing for the ''Los Angeles Times'', called ''We Do Not Part'' an "exquisite and profoundly disquieting latest novel" and found "no answers" in Han's mysterious, eerie, and haunting narrative. Haber also observed that "Han's prose is translucent, shot through with poetic turns" and found a "reportorial tone" in the sections where Inseon's narrates her family's experiences of the Jeju massacre.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Haber |first=Leigh |date=2025-01-15 |title=The latest Nobel laureate's work is haunted by questions. Don't expect answers |url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-01-15/han-kang-we-do-not-part-review |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref> ''People's World'' lauded Han's mention of the American involvement in the Jeju massacre, writing: "This novel not only reveals the emotional toll that ''Human Acts'' took on the author but also deepens and expands on the theme of government aggression, torture, and widespread killings."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Farrell |first=Jenny |date=2024-12-06 |title=Han Kang’s fight against violence, revisionism, and alienation |url=https://peoplesworld.org/article/han-kangs-fight-against-violence-revisionism-and-alienation/ |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=People's World |language=en-US}}</ref>

Hannah Bae, writing for ''Datebook'', observed Han's interplay between reality and dream, life and death, and past and present through "leaps between narrators, time, place and states of being." Bae particularly observed Han's recollection of the Jeju massacre through Inseon's family background and Kyungha's investigation of it, concluding that "The fragility of the human body—and human society—is a recurring theme in Han’s work, and 'We Do Not Part' furthers her exploration."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bae |first=Hannah |title=Review: In ‘We Do Not Part,’ Nobel Prize winner Han Kang implores readers to listen to the dead |url=https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/we-do-not-part-han-kang-19969880 |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=Datebook {{!}} San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guide |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Lists and accolades == Many English-language publications in the west highly anticipated the release of ''We Do Not Part'', as it marked Han's first English translation since her awarding of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature.<ref>{{Cite web |last=O |first=Gilyoung |date=2024-12-20 |title=Opinion: Conflict in South Korea reopens the very wounds examined in this year's Nobel laureate's work |url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-12-20/han-kang-nobel-prize-south-korea-martial-law |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref> ''Book Riot'' predicted that the Nobel Prize would instantly make Han's next book—''We Do Not Part'' in this case—one of the biggest books of 2025.<ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Neal |first=Jeff |date=2024-10-10 |title=Han Kang Wins the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature |url=https://bookriot.com/han-kang-wins-the-2024-nobel-prize-in-literature/ |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=BOOK RIOT |language=en-US}}</ref>

''The New York Times'', the ''South China Morning Post'', ''Elle'', and many other publications placed the novel on their recommended reading lists for 2025.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2024-12-26 |title=20 Books Coming in January |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/books/new-books-january.html |access-date=2025-01-16 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-01-08 |title=New Korean books in English to look forward to in 2025 |url=https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3293697/new-korean-books-english-look-forward-2025-historical-fiction-fantasy |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=South China Morning Post |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Mitchell |first=Rebecca |date=2025-01-14 |title=All The Books We're Excited To Read In 2025 |url=https://www.elle.com.au/culture/entertainment/new-books-2025-novels-fiction-for-women/ |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=ELLE |language=en-AU}}</ref> ''Fashion Journal'' and ''Scary Mommy'' called it one of the most anticipated, exciting book releases in 2025.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Henry |first=Daisy |date=2025-01-10 |title=The most exciting new release novels coming in 2025 |url=https://fashionjournal.com.au/life/new-release-books/ |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=Fashion Journal |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-01-06 |title=11 Of The Most Anticipated Books Of 2025, From Memoirs To Romantasy |url=https://www.scarymommy.com/entertainment/most-anticipated-books-of-2025 |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=Scary Mommy |language=en}}</ref> ''The Korea Times'' mentioned it in their list of books comprising the "wave of Korean literature" to hit English-language markets in 2025.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-01-04 |title=From sci-fi to healing fiction, Korean books cross borders in 2025 |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/culture/2025/01/135_389677.html |access-date=2025-01-16 |website=The Korea Times |language=en}}</ref> The novel won the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The National Book Critics Circle Awards 2025 |url=https://www.bookreporter.com/features/awards/the-national-book-critics-circle-awards-2025 |website=bookreporter.com }}Retrieved 2026-05-05.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=2025 Winners & Finalists, The National Book Critics Circle Awards |url=https://www.bookcritics.org/past-awards/2025/ |website=bookcritics.org }}Retrieved 2026-05-05.</ref>

== References == <references />{{Han Kang}}

Category:Novels by Han Kang Category:Hogarth Press books Category:2021 novels Category:21st-century South Korean novels Category:History of Korea in fiction Category:1940s in South Korea