Light and Thread

At the center of this luminous book is the small, north-facing courtyard garden of Han Kang’s home—kept alive solely by reflected sunlight. Throughout each day, she carefully adjusts mirrors to guide the shifting light, cultivating a living space sustained by attention, patience, and the turning of the earth.

Beginning with her Nobel Lecture, Han Kang traces the “gold thread” of connection she first imagined in a poem at eight years old. With exquisite clarity, she reflects on the wonder of following the thread of language into the hearts of others and the powerful, unseen current that links writer and reader.

A book of quiet revelations, Words and Light invites us to consider the delicate ways we illuminate—and are illuminated by—the world and one another.