The White Book

By Han Kang, Deborah Smith (translator),

Book cover of The White Book

Book description

FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
 
“[Han Kang writes in] intense poetic prose that . . . exposes the fragility of human life.”—from the Nobel Prize citation

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • A “formally daring, emotionally devastating, and deeply political” (The New York Times…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The White Book as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Han Kang is an extraordinary writer, now recognised with the award of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature (the first for a South Korean author). I want to cheat here, and recommend two of her books, short as they are. The White Book is filled with space, and flows with the growing subsong of emotion and feeling. The story builds, and gently holds your heart.

Jump over, too, to Greek Lessons, where the lives intersect of a woman no longer able to speak, since her son was taken away, and a teacher of ancient Greek losing his sight. Wondrous writing…

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