Han Kang, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, has received the National Book Critics Circle Award for her novel We Do Not Part, the English-language edition of her Korean novel Jakbyeolhaji Anneunda. It is the first Korean-language novel to win an NBCC award.
The National Book Critics Circle said it selected We Do Not Part, translated by E. Yaewon and Paige Morris, as the winner in the fiction category at its awards ceremony for books published in 2025, held March 26 local time in New York.
It is the second time a work by a South Korean author has won an NBCC award, following poet Kim Hyesoon’s 2024 win for her collection Phantom Pain Wing.
The NBCC award is considered one of the leading U.S. literary prizes, along with the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Critics working in U.S. media and publishing select the best books published in English each year across six categories: fiction, nonfiction, biography, autobiography, poetry and criticism.
Announcing Han’s win, the NBCC cited the novel’s delicate portrayal of trauma left by the Jeju April 3 incident and called it “a meditation on creation and truth amid loss.” It added, “This artistic novel conjures a strange atmosphere and leaves an overwhelming, dreamlike afterimage.”
Han did not attend the ceremony. In remarks read by her publisher’s editor, she thanked the translators “for creating an astonishing connection from my mother tongue, Korean, into English.” She added, “I still want to believe there is a flickering light within us,” and said she hopes people “hold fast to that light and move forward.”
Heather Scott Partington, chair of this year’s fiction judging panel, told The New York Times the novel stands out for its “dazzling melancholy, desolate weather and whisper-like prose,” adding that it “lingers for a long time like an intense dream.”
Major U.S. outlets also highlighted the win and described the Jeju April 3 incident as a democratization movement on Jeju Island, south of the Korean Peninsula, in which thousands were killed, while noting the historical context behind the novel.
Jakbyeolhaji Anneunda is Han’s first novel in five years since she won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for The Vegetarian. Along with The Vegetarian and Human Acts, it is considered one of her signature works. The novel depicts the tragedy of the Jeju April 3 incident through the perspectives of three women, following the protagonist, Gyeongha, as she visits a friend, Inseon, at her home on Jeju after Inseon suffers an accident in which a finger is severed, and traces the painful past of Inseon’s mother, Jeongsim.
The novel won the Medicis Prize for foreign literature in November 2023, the first time a Korean work received the award, and also received the Emil Guimet Prize for Asian Literature. The Japanese edition’s translator and poet, Mariko Saito, won the Yomiuri Prize in the research and translation category.
Publishers said Han’s latest award could help sustain a surge of interest in literature following her Nobel win, with expectations that fiction will continue to gain ground. Kyobo Book Centre said Han’s novel Human Acts ranked No. 1 overall on its bestseller list for two consecutive years, 2024 and 2025, as sales of fiction rose sharply.
Han is also set to take part in the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in May. Invited as a fellow, she will present a sculpture. Artist Noh Hyeri, one of the participating artists, said Han created a sculpture titled “Funeral” that is scheduled to be shown with her work, adding, “A community not only saved people, it also killed many people. We will talk about that.” Noh said “Funeral” is a sculptural realization of a dream scene that became a motif for We Do Not Part.
Two anthologies to be published in place of a catalog will include Han’s writing, including pages 1 and 2 of We Do Not Part. Han is not expected to attend the exhibition opening, the report said.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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