We Do Not Part

First published in South Korea in 2021, We Do Not Part is a haunting novel of friendship, historical memory and the enduring presence of the dead. When Kyungha, a writer living in Seoul, receives an urgent message from her old friend Inseon, she travels through a violent snowstorm to Jeju Island, where Inseon lies in hospital and her beloved pet bird has been left alone. At Inseon’s remote home, Kyungha becomes entangled in the history of her friend’s family and the atrocities of the Jeju massacres of 1948–1949, when thousands of civilians were killed by South Korean forces. As the boundaries between memory, dream and reality begin to dissolve, the lives of the two women become inseparable from the suffering of those who came before them.

With its extraordinary imagery of snow, darkness and fragile light, Han Kang creates a meditation on grief, historical violence, friendship and the responsibility of bearing witness. The novel reaches into a largely overlooked chapter of modern Korean history, giving intimate form to the lives erased by political repression and the generations left to carry their memories. Both a ghost story and an act of remembrance, We Do Not Part extends the author's profound literary engagement with human suffering, while affirming the tenderness and resilience that can survive even the darkest histories.

From the book

“Sometimes, with some dreams, you awake and sense that the dream is ongoing elsewhere.”

— Han Kang, We Do Not Part

On We Do Not Part

“A disquietingly beautiful novel about the impossibility of waking up from the nightmare of history.”

— Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author