We Do Not Part. International Limited Edition Exclusive Sprayed Edition

I'm going to start this review by saying you should read Human Acts first. Not just because it's arguably Han Kang's best work, but because it is essential to understand this novel. After the completion of Human Acts, Han Kang finds herself afflicted with the same traumatic inability of expression as her characters frequently do (Human Acts, Greek Lessons, The Vegetarian all feature.this theme). Plagued by insomnia and eating disorder, she is ripped out of her depression when a friend asks for her help. The artist turned woodworker living in near complete isolation has severed her fingers in a table saw accident. She asks the writer to visit her home in Jeju (an island in the South of Korea) and check on her budgie. So our narrator finds herself on a trek through endless snow trying to reconstruct her friendship, the history of the island, and her own crisis. Nobody ever accused Han Kang of lightheartedness, but once you can swallow the existential crisis this novel will evoke, you will find that Han Kang has landed her coup de grace. We Do not Part manages to pick up loose threads from each work of Han Kang that I have read and for the first time since Greek Lessons actually offers a glimmer of hope and resolution.