Han Kang: Witness Literature

A new genre to me: Witness literature - stories and narratives that reflect a writer's knowledge and experience of world shattering events that require "mourning and healing".  

In December 2001, the Swedish Academy organized a symposium on the theme of “Witness Literature”. Speakers from Asia, Africa and Europe included three Nobel laureates in literature: Nadine Gordimer, Kenzaburo Oe and Gao Xingjian. (World Scientific)

Add to the writers of this genre, 2024 Nobel Laureate, Han Kang of Korea

We Do Not Part: A Novel by Han Kang, publication Jan. 21, 2025, Hogarth, NetGalley. Genre: historical fiction, literary fiction, Asian literature, Nobel Prize

Description: 

Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully illuminates a forgotten chapter in Korean history, buried for decades—bringing to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable violence—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be. (publisher)

On a lighter yet also significant note, an historical novel

White Mulberry by Rosa Kwon Easton, December 1, 2024; Lake Union Publishing, NetGalley. Historical fiction, women's fiction

Description: 

A rich, deeply moving portrait of a young Korean woman in 1930s Japan who is torn between two worlds and must reclaim her true identity to provide a future for her family. Inspired by the life of the author's grandmother.

As war looms on a new front and Miyoung feels the constraints of her adopted home tighten, she is faced with a choice that will change her life—and the lives of those she loves—forever.

I am fascinated by the history of Koreans in Japan, from pre-war to the present. Other books on this topic include Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. This one tells a story of belonging but yet not quite belonging to an adopted country.

And even lighter still:

The Autumn of Ruth Winters by Marshall Fine, Nov. 5, 2024; Lake Union Publishing. Women's fiction, retirees

I won this ebook and am enjoying the retired, widowed bookkeeper in Minnesota who babysits in her spare time and whose hum drum life begins to explode when her estranged sister calls her for help. In addition, an old high school crush contacts her again to meet up at their class reunion.

Another ebook win that's also a good break from more serious reads:

Happy After All by Maisey Yates, Jan. 1, 2025, Montlake.

I love the desert setting in northern California, and the motel with the flamingo theme that caters to everyone, including quirky senior citizens who live there long term, and the occasional famous book novelist who arrives to finish a book in silence and anonymity.

This is labeled a Meet-Cute romance novel, with all the other romantic tropes thrown in to emphasize the writer that is the main character and narrator, Amelia. 

A fun read, with Meet-Cute turning out to be Enemy to Friends to Lovers trope. And of course a happily ever after ending, improbable as the details may be.

 

Update on Boardman and others: 

I have decided to ignore the bots or others that continue to troll my blog posts. I'll just take it as a compliment. 

What are you reading or watching this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves  

Han Kang: Nobel Prize in Literature 2024: The Vegetarian and Other Works

 

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 is awarded to South Korean author Han Kang "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life." 

Review first posted October 6, 2017 

The Vegetarian by Han Kang (October 30, 2007) Hogarth

I think of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Yeong-Hye stops eating meat and soon imagines herself one with the plant world, needing only sunlight. But her body remains the same, a human body needing food, even if meat-free. (publisher)

I am not sure if this book is a psychological study of extreme delusion or a study of a woman reacting to the strictures of a patriarchal world and a society with strict laws, especially when it comes to women's status. It could be both.

The story is told from three points of view - that of Yeong-Hye; of her brother-in-law who becomes obsessed with her; and of her older sister, the supposedly responsible, sane sister in the family. It's a bit disturbing, this story, but with a lot to ponder.

Book beginning:

Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd had always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way. To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn't even attracted to her. Middling height, bobbed hair neither long nor short; jaundiced, sickly-looking skin, somewhat prominent cheekbones; her timid, sallow cheekbones told me all I needed to know. As she came up to the table where I was waiting, I couldn't help but notice her shoes - the plainest black shoes imaginable. And that walk of hers - neither fast nor slow, striding nor mincing.  

 

Her other book, Human Acts, deals with an historic event - a violent student uprising against political oppression in South Korea and the bloody putdown and massacre that ensued.   

from English Literaturen

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 · 

“After you died I could not hold a funeral,

And so my life became a funeral.”

― Han Kang, Human Acts

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Another memorable author from South Korea is known for her novel, Please Look After Mom, which I reviewed May 16, 2011 

Please Look After Mom: a Novel by Kyung-Sook Shin tells us about the children of a Korean woman whose mother is missing after being separated from her husband on a visit to the big city in the crowded and unfamiliar subway. 

The mother is elderly and becoming disoriented and forgetful; her daughter has only recently realized that her mother cannot read or write. They don't know how to go about finding the mother, apart from posting newspaper notices, searching through the streets, and passing out leaflets with her picture.

During their search, the children find out more about their mother and each member of the family gradually comes to have a deeper understanding of her and the life of sacrifice she has lived.

Set in Korea, I find the novel both culturally revealing and haunting in its view of a family's dynamics and a mother's relationship with her children and husband. 

“Either a mother and daughter know each other very well or they are strangers.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, Please Look After Mom 

Kyung-Sook Shin is the first South Korean and first woman to win the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012, for 'Please Look After Mom'. 

What are you reading/watching this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves