Global February fiction: A new novel by Nobel laureate Han Kang and five other books to read now

All information sourced from publishers.

We Do Not Part, Han Kang, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris

Beginning one morning in December, We Do Not Part traces the path of Kyungha as she travels from the city of Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island, to the home of her old friend Inseon. Hospitalised following an accident, Inseon has begged Kyungha to hasten there to feed her beloved pet bird, who will otherwise die.

Kyungha takes the first plane to Jeju, but a snowstorm hits the island the moment she arrives, plunging her into a world of white. Beset by icy wind and snow squalls, she wonders if she will arrive in time to save the bird – or even survive the terrible cold which envelops her with every step. As night falls, she struggles her way to Inseon’s house, unaware as yet of the descent into darkness which awaits her.

There, the long-buried story of Inseon’s family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in a painstakingly assembled archive documenting a terrible massacre on the island seventy years before.

The Café with No Name, Robert Seethaler, translated from the Austrian by Katy Derbyshire

It is 1966, and Robert Simon has just fulfilled…

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