Awarded the Prix Médicis for foreign literature in France in 2023, Han Kang’s latest novel, We Do Not Part, is more than a reflection on personal sorrow. It is a literary testament to the 1948 massacres on Jeju, South Korea’s largest island.
The number of people killed in an uprising there by South Korean police and soldiers is disputed. Some put the figure as high as 80,000, while others suggest it may have been around 30,000. That is still 10% of the island’s population at the time, with another 40,000 having fled, mainly to Japan.
We Do Not Part is this accomplished author’s examination of how a tragic past can weigh down human emotions. It recognises the delicate nature of human existence and shows how the past can still profoundly shape lives in the present. A line from the book reads: “Life itself is so fragile. These bodies, these bones, these souls are so easily broken, so easily cut.”
Beyond fiction
The 1948 Jeju massacres are rarely acknowledged and little known outside South Korea, so the novel carries cultural significance. By revisiting it, Han broadens readers’ perspectives, highlighting events largely absent from global consciousness. We Do Not Part thus transcends the realm of fiction, becoming a window into a past that continues to shape modern Korean society today.
The story follows Gyeongha, a writer caught in a world of loss and disillusionment, plagued by relentless nightmares and a pain so profound it silences her creative voice. Living on the outskirts of Seoul, she has lost both her family and career, slipping into an isolating darkness.
Her friend Inseon, who lives in Jeju, is hospitalised and requests Gyeongha's urgent help to care for and feed a beloved white parrot, Amar. This thrusts Gyeongha out of her solitude and into a place haunted by the 1948 mass killings, forcing her to confront its painful legacy.
Gyeongha's journey to Jeju becomes a descent into collective memory, where history is ever-present, proving Orwell's dictum that "human history is a river of blood". The novel shows how the massacres are not merely relics but essential threads woven into the consciousness of the island and its people. Memories are not only personal; they are fragments of a shared history.
Art of confrontation
Beyond its psychological dimensions, We Do Not Part presents an artistic approach to collective pain through a collaborative art project between Gyeongha and Inseon. In this narrative, art does not serve as an escape but transforms suffering into a creative force.
Can art transmute pain into resilience? This question resonates with American author Susan Sontag's reflections on the role of art in addressing shared trauma, yet Han Kang's novel explores it in a simpler, equally potent way. Through her narrative, she suggests that art allows us to confront crises in unexpected forms as the characters grapple with balancing memory and reconciliation.
On Jeju Island, Gyeongha feels the haunting weight of 1948, a trauma that permeates the landscape and the people, creating a link between past and present and illustrating how history is not a turned page but a present force. Another Orwell dictum springs to mind, the English author once observing that "whoever controls the past, controls the future." This resonates throughout as the characters confront a past that casts a shadow over their present and future.
The novel's secondary characters also play crucial roles, broadening its scope and adding depth. They represent diverse segments of society touched by trauma, from labourers to tour guides, each embodying a different response to the legacy of suffering. This enriches the narrative with different voices, and Han Kang weaves a collective dimension through these characters.
Landscapes bearing scars
In We Do Not Part, nature is not simply scenery. It mirrors Gyeongha's internal strife. Sudden weather shifts, biting cold, and violent storms convey isolation and danger, suggesting that personal anguish and collective memory are inseparable as if the landscape itself bears the scars.
The author divides the novel into three symbolic sections: Birds, Nights, and Fires. Each marks a pivotal shift in Gyeongha's journey. Initially, she resists facing her pain, but as the story unfolds, she becomes increasingly aware of the past's influence on her life and those around her.
Gyeongha's transformation is poignantly captured. "The more data I was collecting, the clearer the profiles of the cases, the more I felt I had changed," she says, adding that she "was no longer surprised to discover all that humans can inflict on each other". This encapsulates her journey from denial to an unsettling recognition of human cruelty and the irreversible impact of confronting buried truths.
We Do Not Part is not the first book to explore the theme of collective memory. Notable forebears include Jonathan Franzen's The Sorrows of Happiness and Arabic novels like Ahlam Mosteghanemi's Memory of the Body, which explores war trauma and shared memory, transcending cultural and geographical boundaries.
Literature serves here as a bridge, connecting shared human experiences. As American author William Faulkner once wrote, "The past is not dead. It is not even past." Likewise, the Jeju massacres are not distant memories but are alive in the characters' minds and daily lives.
We Do Not Part is more than a novel about a massacre; it is a journey into memory and identity and an exploration of resilience in the face of collective suffering and of trying to forget what is buried deep.
