We Do Not Part / Han Kang / 9780241997048

Like a long winter's dream, this haunting and visionary new novel takes us on a journey from contemporary South Korea into its painful history. Beginning one morning in December, We Do Not Part traces the path of Kyungha as she travels from the city of Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island, to the home of her old friend Inseon. Beset by icy wind and snow squalls, she wonders if she will arrive or even survive the terrible cold which envelops her with every step. As night falls, she struggles her way to Inseon's house, unaware as yet of the descent into darkness which awaits her. There, the long-buried story of Inseon's family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in a painstakingly assembled archive documenting a terrible massacre on the island seventy years before. We Do Not Part is a hymn to friendship, a eulogy to the imagination and above all an indictment against forgetting.