We Do Not Part

A masterpiece . . . We Do Not Part is both act of witness and a beautiful poetic object . . . It is a rare privilege to read a masterpiece so recently crafted, to know that the new prose you are reading (too fast!) will endure. We Do Not Part is an astonishing book

Anne Enright, Guardian

Han Kang offers a devastating indictment of her country’s past . . . The novel conjures a dreamlike feel amid its potent tales of suffering and cruelty, all leading to a final section that is simply stunning. Han pulls off a masterful meditation on what it’s like to be assaulted by an “endless spew of blood-soaked memories”. In that finale, I was stopped short by the grace of one dazzling page, with its cascade of memorable images. These include a description of mental collapse as hundreds of fuses in one’s head blowing one by one, and a woman sleeping all day in a hospice, who reminds Khungha of “a sea where the high tide lasts forever”. Han ends her magnificent novel on a beautifully beguiling note

Independent, ‘Novel of the month’

With patience and acute insight, [Han Kang] explores both the breadth and brutality of human cruelty, and the profound capacity of our species for tenderness . . . We Do Not Part strikes a match in the darkness, insists on the strength of sisterhood, and makes us believe that even the smallest of lives, the pulse of a bird’s heart, should matter

Financial Times

Han’s work – itself a radical form of outreach and connection, an attempt to feel into the painful lives of strangers – is highly original and moving. Although she refuses to look away from human cruelty, it is her glimmers of hope that are most affecting . . . There is, perhaps, no novelist working today who seems so devoted to interrogating the epistemic problem of suffering

New Statesman

One of the greatest living writers . . . She is a voice for women, for truth and, above all, for the power of what literature can be

Eimear McBride

A courageous and gifted writer whose work has truly global resonance . . . [Han Kang’s] writing is nuanced, supple and precise

Irish Times

Bold and revelatory, disquieting and subversive, Han’s style is both spare and lyrical

Guardian

A chilling reminder of the terrible invisibility of people and events that are removed from us in space and time

The New York Times

Exquisite. Han’s radiant intensity, her singular ability to find connections between body and soul, and to experiment with form and style, are what make her one of the world’s most important writers

Los Angeles Times