I Do Not Bid Farewell

Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature and the International Booker Prize for “The Vegetarian,” has written the novel “I Won’t Say Goodbye,” which became a bestseller and won the French Medici Literary Prize for Best Foreign Work. The plot is based on a tragic historical event connected to the suppression of the uprising on Jeju Island by South Korean authorities in 1948–1949, when residents protested against the division of Korea. As a result of these events, between 14,000 and 30,000 people died. The book was first published in Russian.

At the center of the story is writer Kyongha, who, at the request of her friend Inson, goes to Jeju Island to save a bird. But a snowstorm makes Kyongha doubt whether she will arrive in time and survive the harsh conditions. She has no idea what she will face in her friend’s house. Inson’s uncle disappeared after the mass slaughter of peaceful residents in 1948, and her mother travels around the country, unwilling to accept his disappearance.

This is a story about three women whose fates are intertwined by invisible threads of memory. They stubbornly maintain a connection with those who are no longer there. The novel addresses themes of death and life, endurance and pain—and above all, unconditional love and understanding that love and grief are eternal.