We Do Not Part

We Do Not Part explores state complicity in Korean mass atrocities, examining the impact that the coverup of that violence has had on Korean families and society. The protagonist, Kyungha, is haunted by nightmares after writing a book on a mass killing in the city of G——. Although this city is not named, Kang herself wrote a book about the mass killing in her hometown of Gwangju, and the fictional city of G—— can be understood as an oblique reference to Gwangju. In the novel, Inseon, Kyungha’s best friend, is engaged in a years-long project to uncover information about and understand the Jeju and Bodo League massacres. The novel presents each woman within the context of historical atrocity, and the way that they process the impact of those mass killings is meant to speak to the way that Korean society, after years of denial and obfuscation, began to come to terms with its violent past. To contextualize the thematic meanings of We Do Not Part, it is important to understand three historical events: the Jeju uprising and massacre, the Bodo League massacre, and the Gwangju Uprising and massacre. 

The first of these, the Jeju uprising and massacre, occurred in 1948. After World War II, Korea was divided along the 38th parallel, with the United States occupying the south and the Soviet Union occupying the north. Tensions simmered between Soviet-backed communist groups and US-backed nationalist factions, and the ensuing conflicts ultimately led to the Korean War. Communist cells operated in both the north and south, and Jeju Island (located off of the southern tip of the Korean peninsula) was an ideal hiding spot for members of the Workers’ Party of South Korea, the south’s primary communist group. 

Between February and March of 1948, this group launched an insurgency that targeted police, military, and nationalist groups in the south. With the backing of the US military, the Korean government violently cracked down on the communist forces, rounding up not only known members of the Workers’ Party but also any young men who might, because of age alone, be insurgents or sympathizers. Hoping to suppress all communist sympathy in the south, the government expanded its crackdown to include entire families. Tens of thousands of innocent people were killed, and historical records of the Jeju uprising and massacre were officially censored for decades following the killings. 

The Bodo League massacre took place in the summer of 1950 and, like the Jeju massacre, was officially concealed from the public record for decades. The Bodo League was an official re-education campaign created by South Korean President Syngman Rhee to re-educate political opponents who were communist sympathizers or who collaborated with the Japanese regime during its occupation. During the leadup to the Korean War, Rhee had tens of thousands of alleged communists imprisoned and then ordered the execution of both Bodo League prisoners and members of the Workers’ Party of South Korea. The extra-judicial executions were held without trials or sentencing, and in many cases, they were witnessed by members of the US military. Women and children lost their lives alongside men, and survivors were prohibited from speaking out about the massacre. Because there is so little official documentation, it is difficult to estimate how many people were killed—historians currently estimate the number to be at least 60,000, although it is likely much higher. 

The Gwangju Uprising took place in May of 1980, decades after the Jeju and Bodo League massacres, and began with the assassination of South Korean President Park Chung Hee. Park’s assassination in 1979 sparked a series of pro-democracy movements that had not been possible during the years of his authoritarian rule. Against the backdrop of widespread societal discontent and political upheaval, Chun Doo-hwan, chief of Korea’s Defense Security Command, seized power in a military coup. Students in Gwangju organized a series of protests that were violently suppressed by the Korean government with support from the US. Gwangju is referred to in We Do Not Part only obliquely, as the uprising in G—— that so haunts Kyungha, but it is important within this novel’s broader interrogation of Korean political violence: The Gwangju, Jeju, and Bodo League massacres were state-sponsored mass killings performed with the support of foreign state actors like the US and followed by official censorship campaigns to hide the massacres from the public eye. Kang’s novels explore the impact of these atrocities on Korean families and society to argue that without processing and reconciliation, South Korea will never come to terms with its violent past.