Han Kangs We Do Not Part Wins NBCC Fiction Award

Nobel laureate Han Kang's novel "We Do Not Part" claimed the top fiction prize at the National Book Critics Circle awards ceremony in New York on Thursday night, highlighting themes of historical trauma amid a diverse slate of winners spanning literature, technology, and personal memoir.

The awards, presented annually by the National Book Critics Circle, recognized outstanding books published in the United States over the past year. Han's work, originally published in Korean in 2021 and translated into English by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris in 2024, centers on the 1948-1949 Jeju uprising on the South Korean island south of the mainland. The event began as a civilian protest against U.S. military-led rule but was suppressed by government forces, who labeled it a communist revolt, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. Through the perspectives of three women, the novel explores fragile yet resilient human life amid tragedy, with the lead character, Jungshim, embodying quiet determination and unending grief.

Heather Scott Partington, who chaired the fiction committee, praised the book as "a work of blinding melancholy, bleak weather, and murmuring syntax"...