Abstract
Beginning with Human Acts, South Korean author Han Kang underwent what could be described as a “mid-career transformation” in her literary practice, as “mourning” has become one of the central concerns in her recent works. The novel We Do Not Part can be regarded as the culmination of Han Kang's poetics of mourning. Taking the Jeju April 3 Incident as its subject, the novel not only engages with the intertextual relationship between literature and South Korea's discourse of transitional justice since the 1990s, but also attempts to transcend the principle of segregated mourning in contemporary political practice, as well as the “forward-looking” cultural memory paradigm that has shaped the transitional justice movement in the global context. Han Kang's insistence on “not parting” signifies a refusal to internalize the Other through what has been theorized as “successful mourning.” Instead, it enacts an ethical responsibility to uphold the irreducible singularity of the Other, and invokes a conception of justice that exceeds utilitarian calculation, thereby gesturing toward an alternative “politics of mourning.” Formally, Han Kang adopts an intermedial method, drawing on the photographic notion of “punctum” to open up the historical context of the April 3 Incident. In doing so, the novel offers a critical reflection on American Cold War hegemony. This not only endows mourning with ethical reflection and historical critique, but also grants it the affective and intellectual resources to rethink justice and reimagine internationalist solidarity in the post-Cold War era.
Keywords
Han Kang, transitional justice, mourning, We Do Not Part, intermedia
First Page
70
Last Page
84
Recommended Citation
Xi, Weixuan, and Sijin He. 2026. "Beyond Transitional Justice: Han Kang's Literature and the Politics of Mourning." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 46, (2): pp.70-84. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol46/iss2/7
