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Author Han Kang. ⓒJeon Myeong-eun / Moonji Publishing

South Korean novelist Han Kang has released her first new book since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature last year. Titled Light and Thread, the collection was revealed to the public on April 22 and will go on sale online starting April 23, with in-store availability beginning April 24, according to publisher Moonji Publishing.

The book features a total of 12 works, including five poems. Among them are three pieces directly related to her Nobel Prize: the full text of her acceptance lecture, Light and Thread; a heartfelt reflection titled Even in the Darkest Night, delivered at the post-ceremony banquet; and A Small Teacup, a message she wrote when donating a teacup to the Nobel Museum.

The collection also includes prose works such as After Publication, North-Facing Garden, Garden Journal, and After Living More, along with poems including Coat and I, North-Facing Room, (Meditation on Pain), Sound(s), and A Very Small Snowflake.

Three essays—North-Facing Garden, Garden Journal, and After Living More—are published here for the first time. In North-Facing Garden, Han recounts her experiences tending a modest garden after purchasing a home in 2019 with a small four-pyeong (approximately 13-square-meter) outdoor space facing north. In her characteristically calm yet lyrical style, she reflects on nurturing life in a garden that receives little sunlight, and how it led her to a renewed awareness of light itself.