October 9, 2026

Preserve Cultures

Preserve Cultures

Book Review: The White Book by Han Kang

Cover of The White Book by Han Kang, a poetic meditation on trauma, memory, and Korean culture

By Ahmad Ali Talha

The White Book
By Han Kang (2024 Nobel Prize Winner)
Han Kang’s The White Book is divided into three parts: I, She, and All Whiteness. I am shaky writing, She is full of vigor and robust passion, and All Whiteness is mourning. It mirrors human life, childhood, youthful passion, and the stillness of old whiteness.

The best thing about the book is its symbolic meaning. It begins with a rhetorical question by Han Kang: “Baby gowns, rice, fog, breast milk, snow, salt, snowflakes, sugar, sleet, sleeping pills, old hair, the Milky Way, frost, bones, and ashes. What is the one thing they all share? Is it their whiteness?” This whiteness becomes the main story’s beginning, the climax, and the ending. Another element I loved about the book is its exposition of Korean culture. We encounter rice balls, raw rice, white butterflies, onni (older sister), and mourning robes the tradition of burning the deceased’s clothes with the belief that the rising smoke will deliver them to their departed owners.

However, the novel is mostly bleak written on white pages, with no real plot to speak of.

“What would you do if your sister passed away? If your life were uprooted—torn from your country, your sense of belonging—and you were left to endure the weight of unshakable trauma?” If you ask Han Kang the same question, she might respond, “You write a book,” and name it The White Book.

Some days, we catch sight of small white shrouds and think nothing of them. We glance at tiny white coffins, and they seem to hold no weight. But sometimes, within those small shrouds and little coffins, we bury pieces of ourselves. This book uses white as a prism to reflect the spectrum of traumas the author has endured—through the whiteness of pebbles, the whiteness of laughter, and the whiteness of rice balls. This book is Han Kang’s cathartic journey through her traumas, rendered in poetic meditation across its pages. Two black, unseeing eyes turn toward her inner child, asking, with never-spoken words, the silent questions.

The rating given by Our Writer is 7.5/10

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