We Do Not Part: A Novel

Author	Han Kang
Translator	Choi Gyungran, Pierre Bisiou (French) e. yaewon, Paige Aniyah Morris (English)
Language	Korean
Genre	Literary fiction
Publisher	Munhakdongne (Korean) Grasset (French) Hogarth Press (English)
Publication date	September 9, 2021 (Korean) August 23, 2023 (French) January 21, 2025 (English)
Publication place	South Korea
Pages	332 (Korean) 336 (French) 272 (English)
Award	French Prix Medicis for Foreign Literature Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature
ISBN	978-8954682152
Preceded by	Greek Lessons

We Do Not Part: A Novel (Korean: 작별하지 않는다; RR: Jagbyeolhaji anhneunda; lit. No goodbye) is a 2021 novel by South Korean novelist Han Kang, published by Munhak.^[1] 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.

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.^[2] In the same year, the novel was shortlisted for the Prix Femina.^[3] Han also received the Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature for the novel in 2024.^[4]

An English translation by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, published by Hogarth Press, is scheduled to release on January 21, 2025.^[5]

The novel follows a woman named Kyungha, who lives alone in Seoul, as her long-time friend, Inseon, calls her from one of the city's hospitals after a work incident. Inseon tasks her with going back to her house on Jeju Island in order to feed Ama, her bird, which leads Kyungha through a treacherous, difficult journey through the island during a harsh snowstorm. There, as she races against time to ensure the bird's survival, she learns more about Inseon's family and, as a result, contends with the history of the island which she stands upon.

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.^[6] 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.^[7] 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.^[8] 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.^[6] Historians have discussed the true death toll of the Jeju massacre, with estimates in the tens of thousands of lives.^[9]

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 Literature Prize, Han stated,

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.^[10]

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.^[11] 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:

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.^[12]

Han stated that she worked on the novel over the course of seven years and occasionally expressed fears to her editor that she wouldn't be able to finish the book due to its heavy topics. She then stated that completing it was her "happiest moment".^[13]

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.^[14][15][16] 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.^[2] 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.^[17]

On November 10, 2024, an excerpt of the English translation appeared in The New Yorker, titled "Heavy Snow".^[18]

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.^[19]

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.^[20]

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.^[21]

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."^[22]

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.^[23]

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."^[24]

• 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
• The Vegetarian
• Human Acts
• The White Book
• Greek Lessons