Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Han Kang wins NBCC Awards for "We Do Not Part"

Financial News: Han Kang, the first Korean winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, has received the National Book Critics Circle Awards (NBCC Awards) for her novel "We Do Not Part." The 55-year-old author was honored for the English edition of the work.
The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) announced on the 26th (local time) in New York City that the English edition of Han Kang's "We Do Not Part," translated by Lee Yewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, had been selected as the fiction winner at its 2025 awards for books published in that year. The English title of "We Do Not Part" is "We Do Not Part."
At the ceremony, the NBCC praised "We Do Not Part" as a work that "delicately portrays the trauma left in the wake of the Jeju Uprising, and offers a probing meditation on creation and truth amid loss." It added, "This artistic novel casts a strange spell and lingers like an overwhelming dream."
This is the second time a Korean writer's work has received an NBCC Awards honor, following poet Kim Hyesoon's poetry collection "Phantom Pain Wings" (translated by Don Mee Choi).
First published in 2021, "We Do Not Part" is a novel that depicts the tragedy of the Jeju Uprising through the perspectives of three women. It is regarded as one of Han Kang's major works, alongside "The Vegetarian" and "Human Acts."
In the novel, Kyung-ha, a novelist and the protagonist, travels to an empty house on Jeju Island belonging to her friend Inseon, who has been hospitalized after an accident. There, she retraces a painful past, relying on the memories of Inseon's mother.
The book was published in France in 2023 under the title "Impossibles adieux," translated by Choi Kyung-ran and Pierre Bisiou. The French edition went on to win the Prix Médicis étranger and the Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature in succession.
Many critics inside and outside Korea believe that among Han Kang's major works, "We Do Not Part" likely played a decisive role in her winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024.
Han Kang did not attend the NBCC Awards ceremony in person.
In an acceptance message read aloud by her publisher's editor, Han said, "I would like to thank the two translators, Lee Yewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, who created an astonishing bridge from my mother tongue, Korean, into English for this book."
She continued, "I want to believe that there is still a flickering light within us. I hope we can hold on firmly to that light and keep moving forward."
The NBCC is a nonprofit organization founded in 1974 in New York City by critics working in the American media and publishing industries. Each year, it selects the best books written in English and published in the United States, and presents awards in categories such as poetry, fiction, biography, and translation.
rsunjun@fnnews.com Yoo Sun-joon Reporter