The White Book by Han Kang

Book Review | An innovative exploration of grief, memory, and loss, centered on the personal tragedy of Han Kang, 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature winner. A unique and fascinating perspective.

I’ve read Annie Ernaux before and always wondered what makes Nobel Prize in Literature winners so special. Now I can see something unique about them—they don't quite fit into any categorization. Han Kang, the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, is similar. This is my first Han Kang book; if you don’t know her, her other famous works include “Human Acts” and “The Vegetarian.”

Coming to this book, it’s hard to say exactly what it is. It’s one of those works that don’t fit into any traditional genre classifications. You simply cannot fit it into neat little boxes. Some people call it poetry, but it’s not even that. There’s a unique approach to storytelling—this isn’t fiction but rather her own life story, more like an autobiographical series of passages and reflections. Throughout the read, it felt like being caressed by grief. It has many elements of grief, which are simply beautiful and bizarre.

The narrative begins with a deeply personal tragedy, the death of her sister, who lived for only a few hours after a premature birth. The circumstances of this loss are particularly haunting—a young mother of 22, alone in a remote location without access to medical help or communication.

You must wonder about the name, mustn’t you? The book’s exploration of “white things” is a brilliant metaphor throughout. She writes about a lot of white things, and one such white thing is a moon-shaped rice cake, which represents her dead sister’s face, as described by her mother. When reading about these white things, everything felt strangely new. I’ve known these white things all my life but never looked at them this way. It’s such a bizarre feeling.

Most interesting to me was how her sister’s death isn’t just a tragedy but the foundation of Han Kang’s life itself. She reveals that her own life is inextricably linked to her sister’s death—her mother later shared that had her sister survived, Kang herself might never have been born. She writes from a perspective where her very existence is bound to this absence.

There’s a passage about how she breathes in her sister’s dying breaths, in the same way someone else will breathe in her dying breaths. How strikingly beautiful is that?

She contemplates all the things and people who came before us, and how random conditions of the past come together to make the present possible, but also how the past is crucial and always present. Throughout, it gave me a feeling of helpless grief—something you have no control over. Being helpless but also enduring what life throws at you, just for the sake of existing. And there’s such quietness to it. I’ve read about grief in many different ways in literature, but never from this perspective. This was extremely unique. Raw!

She touches on heavy ideas throughout the book, but they feel like simple things we see or experience in our daily lives. There’s real feeling and reflection behind every detail and word she wrote. Above all, I found her perspective fascinating.

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A Note To You

I’m curious to hear from others who’ve experienced this book. Have you read other works by Han Kang? Or perhaps you’ve encountered other books that explore grief and memory in similarly innovative ways? Please share your thoughts in the comments or reply to the email.

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