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Light and Thread

by Han Kang

Essays, poems, diaries, and the threads between them

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Awards & Recognition

  • Editorial selection

    A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year

    Named one of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of the Year.

  • Author recognition

    Nobel Prize winner Han Kang

    Han Kang is described as a Nobel Prize winner; this is an author recognition, not an award for this book.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Essays, poems, diaries, and the threads between them

In this collection, Han Kang brings together essays, poems, photographs, and diary entries, beginning with her Nobel Lecture. A small north-facing courtyard garden at her home provides a recurring point of reference: its plants receive reflected sunlight from mirrors moved through the day. The book also returns to an image from a poem Kang wrote at eight—the “gold thread” connecting people—and considers language as a way of reaching across inner and outer worlds. Its form places personal reflection alongside writing about language and the connections between writer and reader, offering a varied entry into the concerns that link these pieces.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in Han Kang’s nonfiction and Nobel Lecture.
  • Readers who enjoy collections combining essays, poetry, photographs, and diaries.
  • Readers interested in reflections on language, writing, and connection.

Themes

Language and connectionInner and outer worldsLight and the natural worldMemory and personal reflection

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

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.
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