We Do Not Part is a novel in three parts written by South Korean author Han Kang and translated into English by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, first published in 2021 in Korean and 2025 in English. Kang considers this book to form a pair with her 2014 novel Human Acts, both of which concern the aftermath of brutal historical events in Korea. Specifically, We Do Not Part focuses on the Jeju 4.3 Massacre, and blends historical fiction with magical realism to address universal questions of human brutality, dignity, and love.
We Do Not Part follows a historian and writer named Kyungha who emerges from her isolated torpor to answer the call of an old friend named Inseon. After slicing off her fingertips in a woodworking accident, Inseon asks Kyungha to rush to her home on Jeju Island in order to save Inseon's pet bird, Ama. While on the island, Kyungha encounters Inseon's apparition and delves into Inseon's research about the massacres that took place on Jeju in the late 1940s. As the women struggle to reckon with historical atrocities, Kyungha wonders whether she herself is a wandering spirit. Han evokes the brutal violence that took place on Jeju and that continues to haunt the land and its people in the present day.
The English translation garnered generally positive reviews, with many critics emphasizing Han's approach to writing about human violence, resilience, and dignity. A 2023 French translation by Choi Gyungran and Pierre Bisiou (Éditions Grasset) was awarded the Prix Médicis for Foreign Literature that same year. In 2024, Han became the first Asian woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
