The White Book

by Han Kang

I hold nothing dear. Not the place where I live, not the door I pass through every day, not even, damn it, my life.

So that it seems the place I flee to is not so much a city on the other side of the world as further into my own interior.

What is white, though may yet be sullied; Only white things will I give.

Standing at this border where land and water meet, watching the seemingly endless recurrence of the waves (though this eternity is in fact illusion: the earth will one day vanish, everything will one day vanish), the fact that our lives are no more than brief instants is felt with unequivocal clarity.

There are certain memories that remain inviolate to the ravages of time. And to those of suffering. It is not true that everything is colored by time and suffering. It is not true that they bring everything to ruin.

As though there has never been a time when the only comfort lay in the impossibility of forever.

Days in which darkness and light are both imperfect swell with memories of the past.

My life means yours is impossible.