The White Book

This article is about a Korean novel. For other uses, see White book.

The White Book (Korean: 흰, romanized: Huin, lit. 'White') is a 2016 novel by the Korean novelist Han Kang which was short-listed for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize.^[1] The English translation by Deborah Smith was first published by Portobello Books in 2017.^[2]

publ. Hogarth

The book has been described as "a fragmented autobiographical meditation on the death of the unnamed narrator’s baby sister, who died two hours after her birth.".^[3] The novel uses an unconventional narrative and short meditations on the color white to discuss grief, loss, and the fragile nature of the human spirit. Kang describes a total of 65 white objects in the book, including rice, sugar cubes, and breast milk.^[4]

Main White Objects List

• Swaddling bands
• Newborn gown
• Salt
• Snow
• Ice
• Moon
• Rice
• Waves
• Yulan
• White bird
• "Laughing whitely"
• Blank paper
• White dog
• White hair
• Shroud

Translation

• Kang, Han. The White Book. Translated by Smith, Deborah. Portobello Books. ISBN 978-0-525-57306-7