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We Do Not Part

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We Do Not Part

By: Han Kang, e. yaewon - translator, Paige Morris - translator
Narrated by: Greta Jung
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2024

Like a long winter’s dream, this haunting and visionary new novel from 2024 Nobel Prize winner Han Kang 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. Hospitalized following an accident, Inseon has begged Kyungha to hasten there to feed her beloved pet bird, who will otherwise die.

Kyungha takes the first plane to Jeju, but a snowstorm hits the island the moment she arrives, plunging her into a world of white. Beset by icy wind and snow squalls, she wonders if she will arrive in time to save the bird – 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.

Translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris

‘One of the most profound and skilled writers working on the contemporary world stage’ Deborah Levy

‘A vital voice and a writer of extraordinary humanity. Her work is a gift to us all’ Max Porter

‘A remarkable novelist who reflects our modern condition with courage, imagination, and keen intelligence’ Min Jin Lee

© Han Kang 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Editors Select Friendship Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature

Editorial Review

The past shapes the present
Han Kang has created a novel that is immersive, soul-wrenching and eye-opening. This literary and historical tale follows Kyungha, a writer who has lost her creative voice and finds herself on an unexpected trip from Seoul to Jeju Island to care for a sick friend’s pet bird. This takes Kyungha to a place haunted by a 1948 massacre, forcing her to confront its painful legacy. Divided into three sections—Birds, Nights and Fires—each beautifully narrated by Greta Jung, the story marks three pivotal shifts in Kyungha's journey. More than a retelling of the little-known Jeju massacre, We Do Not Part brings listeners on a moving exploration of memory, identity and resilience in the face of collective suffering. —Tricia F., Audible Editor

Critic Reviews

[Han Kang’s] empathy for vulnerable, often female, lives is palpable, and reinforced by her metaphorically charged prose . . . She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in a poetic and experimental style has become an innovator in contemporary prose (Nobel Prize in Literature Committee)
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)
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
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
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
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
Bold and revelatory, disquieting and subversive, Han’s style is both spare and lyrical
A chilling reminder of the terrible invisibility of people and events that are removed from us in space and time
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
All stars
Most relevant
The words used to describe what the characters were feeling, especially in chapter six, dripped from the page into my body like a blood transfusion. I loved this book.

Beautifully written.

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Seemed somewhat meandering and hard to follow what was the intent of the author. It was not really revealed until the end. It lacked upfront context. But perhaps much of my dissatisfaction was because it was hard to follow as an audiobook unless I concentrated (and I didn’t so I guess that’s my fault).
However, it was most revealing about a horrendous and wicked beginning to the modern Korea.
The narrator’s intonation was far too flat although some listeners might think it matched the message.

Probably too complex to follow as an audiobook

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.