I find a lot of enjoyment and a lot of insight to be gained from reading works of Han Kang’s, and We Do Not Part is no exception to this. Throughout this novel, she demonstrates her unique ability to blur the boundary between what is real and what is imagined, leading to a conflation between the two that is inseparable and extremely cinematic. It is the peak of what literary fiction can and should be.

What begins as a story centered around our main character, Kyungha, becomes something far more expansive. It is historical and collective, while also retaining elements of the mystical. Kang blends documented tragedy with dreamlike, almost fantastical elements. Through this balance, she is able to truly illuminate a darker side of Korean history while honoring those killed and irreparably harmed by what occurred in the past. The surrealism in her work becomes the language through which generational trauma is approached and conveyed.

One of the novel’s most striking chords is the way it humanizes historical catastrophe. Rather than presenting the 1948 Jeju Massacre and Bodo League Massacre as moments distant or archival, they are embodied through the immediate, personal connection of Inseon’s family experiences. It isn’t merely a recital of history, but something felt, a large-scale suffering rendered specific through the story of one family. The past isn’t static, but rather a living and breathing thing, lingering on in the descendants of this family left to remember its horrors. In this way, fact and fiction become intwined, each deepening the resonance of the other and the impact of the work over all.

Kang’s use of tone and imagery is truly masterful and impressively cohesive. As she shifts between fantastical and historical elements, the story never feels disjointed. Rather, these different aspects of the novel work well together in creating something so poignant and haunting in its totality. Her prose is elegant and beautiful while still framing the brutality of these events with reverence and care. It is so clear the thought that goes into her work and the reverence she holds for those who are centered in these tragedies, similarly to her past novel, Human Acts.

Ultimately, this story isn’t told in the most conventional way, but it truly is a work of art in its own right. Kang masterfully showcases what it means to remember and to survive both personal and political tragedy. The novel’s power lies not only in what it recounts, but in how it insists on tenderness in the face of devastation.

This work is not merely a memoir of illness. Rather, it powerfully highlights the political and emotional reckoning inherent to a breast cancer diagnosis. It refuses to separate the physical experience of Lorde’s breast cancer (and resulting mastectomy) from the social forces surrounding her, particularly racism, sexism, capitalism, and the expectations of femininity to be performed even in the throes of malignancy. It is truly so resonant and still feels so relevant years later. In a way it is disheartening to see how little has changed socially, but also provides comfort to my experience of a similar diagnosis.

Despite the advancements of our modern era and how breast cancer prognoses have improved, a diagnosis can still serve as an emotional rupture. So much turmoil is unearthed the moment a cancer diagnosis occurs. It becomes both a medical event and an entire personal unraveling, forcing us to confront the realities of our own anxieties and fears and the reality of our mortality.

Lorde also highlights the culture of silence that surrounds illness, particularly illness faced by women. There is power in speaking our experiences, power that can bring women together and forge healing through acts of love and care. Her refusal to wear prosthesis for her missing breast struck me as exceptionally moving. She isn’t condemning women who choose a path of prosthesis or reconstruction, but instead condemns a society that demands “normalcy” from women experiencing cancer on behalf of the comfort of others.

This is a work that validates the anger, fear, and grief inherent to a breast cancer diagnosis. It’s especially comforting and radical to hear that I don’t have to perform positivity or femininity for anyone. As Lorde writes, “I refuse to be reduced in my own eyes or in the eyes of others from warrior to mere victim, simply because it might render me a fraction more acceptable or less dangerous to the still complacent, those who believe if you cover up a problem it ceases to exist” (53).