Light and Thread

by Han Kang

From Nobel Prize winner Han Kang comes her first work of nonfiction published in English—a singular collection of writings including her inspiring Nobel Lecture.

A LITERARY HUB AND ELECTRIC LIT MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR

In this light-filled and multi-faceted book, Han Kang draws together the threads of her work and life, tracing the connections between her interior and exterior worlds through a sequence of essays, poems, photographs, and diaries, brilliantly translated by Maya West and e. yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris.

A book of reflections, of words and light, it has at its heart the tiny, north-facing courtyard garden at her home, cultivated solely through the reflected sunlight of the mirrors which she must move throughout the day, as the earth turns on its axis.

In a poem written at eight years old, Han Kang imagined a “gold thread” of connection—an idea which she explores here with luminous attention, beginning with her Nobel Lecture. She writes of the wonder of following the thread we call language into the depths of other hearts, and her profound sense of an electric current which joins writer and reader.

Both intimate and illuminating, Light and Thread is a book for all readers of Han Kang’s unique body of work.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Poetry, Memoir, Asia, Philosophy, Writing

176 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 2025

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Han Kang ( 한강) was born in 1970 in South Korea. She is the author of The Vegetarian, winner of the International Booker Prize, as well as Human Acts, The White Book, Greek Lessons, and We Do Not Part. In 2024, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life."

Reviews

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

i would read anything han kang ever writes

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)

[Camilla tra le righe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me lo rileggo altre tre, quattro o venti volte per impararlo a memoria e portarlo sempre con me.

[Léa · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
I just adore anything and everything Han Kang writes!!!

Part memoir, essay, poetry and diary entries, it's always such a joy to get more of an insight into a favourite writers mind! (I truly recommend this mainly as a secondary read after her novels) The first half was astounding and reading the garden diaries in the crux of spring felt like such a singular experience (but wasn't as poignant as the beginning). Will be eagerly waiting for her next novel...

[Ajeje Brazov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raccolti in questo volume di neanche 40 pagine, vi sono: una storia autobiografica su cosa spinge l'autrice a scrivere romanzi e perchè, con vari riferimenti a tutte le sue opere pubblicate e poi un discorso per la premiazione al Nobel per la letteratura. Quindi sarebbe stato meglio leggerlo dopo aver letto tutte le sue opere, ma devo dire che invece mi ha incuriosito ancora di più a leggere i suoi libri che ancora non ho letto ed anche a rileggere quelli già letti, in un tripudio di riflessioni sociali ed umane, come:
Perchè il mondo è così pieno di violenza e dolore?
E come può, allo stesso tempo, essere di tale bellezza?

[Sarah ~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Light and Thread - Han Kang


"مع ابتعادي عنها، كتبي ستحيا وحدها، تسافر حيثُ تأخذها الأقدار. "


"لم يكد الربيع يحلّ، وها نحن ذا، نتجه بالفعل نحو الصيف."



يضم هذا العمل القصير الذي صدر مؤخرًا لهان كانغ؛ صورة عامة لكل كتبها وتاريخ وظروف كتابتها، ويوميات وقصائد ومقالات وصورًا فوتوغرافية.
عمل قصير ووجدته يشبه الكتاب الأبيض قليلًا.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leggere e scrivere letteratura vuol dire opporsi a ogni atto che distrugga la vita.

Saranno anche 20 pagine, ma come sempre Han Kang riesce a condensare tutto ciò che era necessario dire sul senso dell'atto scrittorio.

[Benedetta Folcarelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho pianto.

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘When I write, I use my body. I use all the sensory details of seeing, of listening, of smelling, of tasting, of experiencing tenderness—warmth—cold—pain—my heart racing and my body needing food and water—a mortal being with blood coursing through—As if I am sending out an electric current. And when I sense this current being transmitted to the reader, I am astonished and moved. In these moments I experience again the thread of language that connects us, how my questions are relating with readers through that electric, living thing.’

Absolutely fucking brilliant, to say the least . I knew I was going to 'love' this even before I read it, but reading it just confirms it for me and more. rtc later .

‘Back in my mid-twenties, I had written these lines on the first page of every new diary:

Can the present help the past?
Can the living save the dead?

As I continued reading, it became clear that these were impossible questions. Through this sustained encounter with the bleakest aspects of humanity, I felt the remnants of my long-fractured belief in humanity shatter entirely. And that my two questions had to be reversed.

Can the past help the present?
Can the dead save the living?

Later, as I was writing what would become Human Acts, I sensed at certain moments that the past was indeed helping the present, and that the dead were saving the living. I would revisit the cemetery from time to time, and somehow the weather would always be clear. I would close my eyes, and the sun’s orange rays would suffuse my lids. I felt it as life’s own light. I felt the light and air envelop me in indescribable warmth. To negotiate an impossible way through the empty space between these two precipices of human horrors and human dignity, I needed the assistance of the dead.’

[omi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Può il presente aiutare il passato?
Possono i vivi salvare i morti?

Può il passato aiutare il presente?
Possono i morti salvare i vivi?

[Giada Costa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Opporsi alla violenza e amare. Basta davvero così poco. Eppure continuiamo a rivivere orrori e massacri. Forse gli interrogativi evolvono, ma la noce resta sempre la stessa, l'amore per la vita.

[Lalibreriadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho sottolineato praticamente tutte le pagine

[Martina_ArsGoetia · Rating 5 out of 5]

39 pagine e un pugno allo stomaco gigantesco.
percepitemi così.

[Tanja · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved the first half. The garden diary was nice, but maybe not as poignant as the rest.

[Nephelibata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo libriccino - che riporta i due discorsi del ritiro del Nobel - è l'esempio perfetto di come si possa dire tutto con poco. Basta solo scegliere le parole giuste.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title piece of Light and Thread is the Nobel Lecture 빛과 실 delivered by 한강 in December 2024, as translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, a lecture which closed:

언어가 우리를 잇는 실이라는 것을, 생명의 빛과 전류가 흐르는 그 실에 나의 질문들이 접속하고 있다는 사실을 실감하는 순간에. 그 실에 연결되어주었고, 연결되어줄 모든 분들에게 마음 깊은 감사의 인사를 드린다.

In these moments I experience again the thread of language that connects us, how my questions are relating with readers through that electric, living thing. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who have connected with me through that thread, as well as to all those who may come to do so.

The lecture itself, as a video, and with text of the Korean original as well as text/subtitles in English and in Swedish was already available on the Nobel Prize website, but this edition provides a welcome commemorative copy for one's shelves, along with some assorted other pieces translated by Maya West.

This is perhaps one for Han Kang completists, but the additional pieces include:

- After Publication, a poetic essay on her reflections after completing 작별하지 않는다 (We Do Not Part), which covers similar ground to the Nobel speech
- Small Teacup, a note accompanying the donation of teacup which she used while writing the book to the Nobel museum
- a series of short poems
- North Facing Garden, a piece on the small garden she established in 2018 in the first house she fully owned in her own name (the small size and north-facing nature of which meant that the author placed mirrors around the garden, to reflect sunlight on to the plants, linking to the theme of light in the book)
- Garden Diary, a series of diary entries covering the same period
- and a photocopy of the poem she wrote as an eight year old, whose rediscovery in her papers began her Nobel lecture

사랑이란 어디 있을까?
팔딱팔딱 뛰는 나의 가슴 속에 있지.

사랑이란 무얼까?
우리의 가슴과 가슴 사이를 연결해주는 (아름다운) 금실이지.

Where is love?
It is inside my thump-thumping beating chest.

What is love?
It is the (beautiful) gold thread connecting between our hearts.

[아름다운 i.e. beautiful in brackets as that word is included in the photo but not the author's speech]

A wonderful addition to my shelves - although The White Book would be a better starting point for the author's more lyrical work.

[nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Major thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:

*3.5 rounded up

For the longest time, I’ve been waiting for English audiences to arrive at Kang’s poetry. And though this isn’t her strongest work, there’s a lot to like here for fans.

Here, she looks at her own writing, its power and the power she places in her own writing. The process.

Process also appears again in the form of a gardening journal where she talks about the plants that flourish and surround her.

My initial impressions were correct: she’s a woman who is frail, careful in her approach to the world and humanity as she feels every ache of suffering of the human condition, all reasons why I love her work so much. They’re about the marginalized few, finding time and space in crevices of pain and tragedy.

For a breakdown of her work, I have a tier list of all her currently published fiction. This is best to come to after reading one or two of her works.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never read a Han Kang book before, though after she won the Pulitzer, her novels have been on my radar.
I picked this up, as it is the first non-fiction book she has written. I was expecting beautiful prose, thoughts on life, poems, which is exacty what I received.

"Over the past three years, I have gradually come to realize that this work is fundamentally transforming my very constitution. As the gentle warmth of this small place holds me close, quiet. With the rhythm of the light changing each day, each moment, each season."

Kang talks about planting, writing her past novels, a small dosage of her relationship with her mother (wish there was more).
"Could it be that love was in fact my life’s oldest and most fundamental undertone?"

While I now get her writing - flowerly, lush, small details, I just didn't see the point of this book, and I wanted to so hard.

[Ilcicers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saranno neanche 20 pagine effettive, eppure Han Kang è riuscita a emozionarmi ripercorrendo i momenti di stesura delle sue opere, gli interrogativi che l’hanno spinta a scriverle e il filo dorato che le unisce.

[Sam Cheng · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Annyeong,” Han Kang,
“we who have neither met nor parted”

Kang’s Light and Thread contains prose writing, poetry, and journal entries, respectively. The opening section reads like a supplementary article that follows a book’s publication, distilling her frame of mind as she creates her novels, including The Vegetarian, Ink and Blood, and Greek Lessons. Walking through each project, she reveals the heavy existential questions that burdened her while writing; in her research and narrative, she probes for a satisfactory response to end her questions. In the chasm between violence and light, Kang postulates that the thread connecting human beings—a species whose capacity to inflict profound horror confounds her—to one another is love, a notion she journaled about at the age of eight. Still, in 2012, the author had yet to produce a novel focused on life as such. She answers in 2014 through Human Acts, and in 2021, We Do Not Part would be Kang’s meditation on love: Πού και τι είναι η αγάπη?

Following her poems, Kang tracks her gardening activity in her north-facing house. She sets up mirrors in her front yard to reflect the sunlight so that her plants can grow, and she assiduously adjusts the mirrors’ angles throughout the day to redirect the light. In the midst of her diary entries, with extraordinary attention to light and love in her novel and in her garden, she completes We Do Not Part.

My thanks to Hogarth and NetGalley for an ARC.

[Matteo Alberti · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 ⭐️

[Agustín Martín · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cortito pero intenso. De entre todo lo que motiva a Kang para escribir, me quedo con la última idea: escribir (y leer) es un hilo directo al corazón ajeno, un hilo dorado que insiste en la necesidad de imaginar el punto de vista de otros, en la empatía. Dan ganas de ponerse a ello. O por lo menos, de leerla más.

[Chiara · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Utilizzo ogni più sottile sfumatura delle sensazioni vivide che il mio corpo mortale percepisce, e cerco di infonderle nelle mie frasi come una corrente elettrica"

EH

[Franginmar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been crying for half an hour.
Please, read it.

[Alice Bertolotti]

Me l’ha letto la Francesca, super brava!

[Camilla Pruccoli 🎃☕️🪄 · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Perché il mondo è così pieno di violenza e dolore? E come può, allo stesso tempo, essere di una tale bellezza?”

Ogni romanzo dell’autrice nasce da una o più domande che si interrogano sull’inevitabile scontro tra sofferenza e vita; ma forse che il Leitmotiv più antico e basilare da cui ogni sua parola sgorga è, a livello più profondo, la domanda sull’amore? Dov’è l’amore? Cos’è l’amore?
“È il filo d’oro che unisce i nostri cuori”.
Nella notte più buia, Han Kang si pone domande e attraverso il flusso caldo della scrittura scopre di cosa è fatta. Esplora la vita, perfino attraversandone la crudezza. Decide di non morire, non lascia che della neve fredda non si sciolga sul suo viso. Emana calore, per lei, per gli altri esseri viventi e anche per i morti. Diventa, guidata dalle sue domande ataviche e umane, attraverso il linguaggio indagatore, il filo d’oro che unisce i nostri cuori.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

gorgeous as always. I will read everything this author ever releases

[Micaela Bianchini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro da leggere lentamente, da riaprire. Piccolo, ma capace di fare molta luce.

[Akankshya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll read anything Han Kang writes, even haphazard scribbles of her thoughts or mundane details about a home garden in poem/diary form, and that's exactly what this is. Oh, except for the translated Nobel lecture, which is the title story and is an amazing insight into Kang's writing, totally worth reading after going through her books.

In the darkest night, there is language that asks what we are made of, that insists on imagining into the first-person perspectives of the people and living beings that inhabit this planet; language that connects us to one another. Literature that deals in this language inevitably holds a kind of body heat. Just as inevitably, the work of reading and writing literature stands in opposition to all acts that destroy life.

[Carolyn Dougherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! I’ve read We Do Not Part. I will return to this author soon to read her other works.

[Emelie Gaughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short collection includes Han Kang’s musings, poetry, gardening journals and her Nobel acceptance speech. I absolutely loved it.