'A brilliant psychogeography of grief, moving as it does between place, history and memory... Poised and never flinches from serene dignity... The White Book is a mysterious text, perhaps in part a secular prayer book... Translated peerlessly by Smith, [it] succeeds in reflecting Han's urgent desire to transcend pain with language' -- --Guardian

'There is beauty and pain in every sentence and image, made sharper by their simplicity and aching honesty' -- New Internationalist

'There is a crispness to [Han's]pieces evocative of the stark luminescence of white... The White Book is a shimmering, evocative work' --National UAE

'Wonderful. A quietly gripping contemplation on life, death and the existential impact of those who have gone before' -- Eimear McBride

'Han Kang is a genius' -- Lisa McInerney

'Delicate and thoughtful and concise and dense and strong; this is the kind of writing I like to read slowly' -- --Jon McGregor, Best Books of 2017, Guardian

Shortlisted for the Man Booker International 2018 From the author of The Vegetarian, winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2016 From the author of The Vegetarian and Human Acts comes a book like no other. The White Book is a meditation on colour, beginning with a list of white things. It is a book about mourning, rebirth and the tenacity of the human spirit. It is a stunning investigation of the fragility, beauty and strangeness of life. Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith.

Han Kang was born in Gwangju, South Korea, and moved to Seoul at the age of ten. She studied Korean literature at Yonsei University. Her writing has won the Yi Sang Literary Prize, the Today's Young Artist Award, and the Korean Literature Novel Award. The Vegetarian, her first novel to be translated into English, was published by Portobello Books in 2015 and won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. She is also the author of Human Acts (Portobello, 2016) and The White Book (Portobello, 2017). She is based in Seoul. Deborah Smith's translations from the Korean include two novels by Han Kang, The Vegetarian and Human Acts, and two by Bae Suah, A Greater Music and Recitation. In 2015 Deborah completed a PhD at SOAS on contemporary Korean literature and founded Tilted Axis Press. In 2016 she won the Arts Foundation Award for Literary Translation. She tweets as @londonkoreanist.