The novel “We Do Not Part,” by the Nobel laureate Han Kang, involves a pet-sitting quest gone surreal: It follows a writer and documentarian whose hospitalized friend beseeches her to take care of her stranded pet parakeet on an island hundreds of miles away. When she arrives, the writer finds not only the bird but also an apparition of her friend, who has a devastating history to tell.
Transforming real life into a haunting dreamscape, “We Do Not Part” is about grief, tragedy, the weight of the past, and the painful but essential work of remembering, delivered by one of the most electrifying writers working today. (Han’s 2016 novel, “The Vegetarian,” won the International Booker Prize and was chosen as one of The New York Times’s Best Books of the 21st Century.) On this week’s episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses “We Do Not Part” with with fellow Book Review editors Lauren Christensen and Emily Eakin.
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