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Nobel-winning author Han Kang's 2021 novel about Jeju Uprising short-listed for NBCC Awards

Published: 21 Jan. 2026, 21:27

Han Kang speaks at a media conference for the release of her novel, ″We Do Not Part″ (2021), on Sept. 7, 2021. [MUNHAK DONGNE]

Nobel Prize-winning writer Han Kang’s novel “We Do Not Part” (2021) has been short-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Awards, one of the most influential literary prizes in the United States.

The English translation of the historical novel was named one of five finalists in the fiction category for the 2025 awards, the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) announced on Tuesday. E. Yaewon and Paige Morris translated the book into English.

The novel explores the Jeju Uprising -- also referred to as the April 3 uprising -- a series of massacres that began in 1947 and continued into 1954, killing thousands of people. The government’s crackdown on the uprising is widely recorded as a violent and traumatic episode in Korean history.

Founded in New York in 1974, the NBCC is a nonprofit organization made up of book critics working in U.S. media and publishing. Since 1975, it has presented annual awards for outstanding books published in English across poetry, fiction, nonfiction and biography, memoir/autobiography and criticism.

The winners will be announced on March 26.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY SHIN HYE-YEON [[email protected]]