We Do Not Part

A Novel

De: Han Kang, E. Yaewon - translator, Paige Aniyah Morris - translator

Narrado por: Greta Jung

THE NEW NOVEL FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

“[Han Kang’s] intense poetic prose . . . confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”—The Nobel Committee for Literature, in the citation for the Nobel Prize

“[A] masterpiece.”—The Boston Globe

“A novel that is both disquieting and entrancing.”—The Economist

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BOOK CLUB SELECTION • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR): The New York Times, Vulture, The Economist

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.

One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. 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 the darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.

Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully illuminates a forgotten chapter in Korean history, buried for decades—bringing 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 violence—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.

©2025 Han Kang (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A chilling reminder of the terrible invisibility of people and events that are removed from us in space and time.”—The New York Times

“A haunting exploration of friendship amid historical trauma.”—TIME

“A novelist and poet of tremendous feeling and precision . . . We Do Not Part [is] a beautiful, mysterious story built around . . . a pogrom on Jeju Island after the Korean War, told from the perspective of three women characters.”—The New Yorker

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

History

A lot of historical facts however would liked to have gotten more of a connection with the characters

Hunting and poetic

Deeply moving and absolute masterpiece of literature. Equally impressive is the strength of translation which does justice to the book.

Powerful, Tough Listen

To truly understand the depth of this novel, I believe it will take several readings. Han Kang is a masterful, complex, sometimes confusing storyteller. We Do Not Part, like Human Acts, is a documenting of atrocities that took place in Korean history. It is masterfully set up almost as a dream like ghost story, when a close friend calls on the MC to save her bird after being hospitalized. She has severed her fingers and her beloved Budgie will not survive without care. There is a palatable tension throughout the MC’s journey to get to the island in a snowstorm. From there research papers are found on the massacre that took place.

I will not give anymore details away as I feel it is best to read them within the novel. This is a tough read. The MC is suffering with suicide ideations/depression and the atrocities that have taken place within her country. It does not shy away from the descriptive truth of the massacre, including the killing of children but there is also a masterful lightness to her sentences and comparisons to birds, snow, black logs, matches slowing burning out, trees that look human, etc. that makes it all digestible.

We do not part from remembering the people or what happened to them after reading this beautiful novel. And you will sadly question humanity and the evil humans are capable of.

Haunting, Heartbreaking Beauty

An abstract, impressionistic memorial to the innocence lost on Jeju Island. Told through birds, snow, shadow, and desperate love.

Nice sentences

Moments not always grounded enough to keep track of where we are. Still, well written and interesting.

The beauty of language contrasting with horrendous imagery.

It was a most difficult book to listen for me. The most beautiful, poetic words describing horrendous images in such a superb way that I felt my neurons lighting up with imagery and light. My brain was on fire. But it was arduous and painstaking to listen.

Difficult to put down

This book was written about a history of Korea (1945), where treacherous behaviors were not much different than the Holocaust, but the sentences were that of a poets.

Incredible look at the effect of wartime on people living through it and the evil done by the oppressors to non militants.

Two young women come to terms with what war and oppression did to their families, even though they were not alive when most events occurred. They seemed to relive the trauma of their parents.

relentlessly dark

This is a relentlessly dark novel. If you think you would enjoy reading an entire chapter about a woman who needs to have her fingers stabbed with needles every 3 minutes in order to heal from her injury, this is the right book for you.

Tired old dying voice of insun

Overindulgent of one person’s story. The protagonist enables a highly dysfunctional friend. It almost delegitimizes everyone else who suffered.