Hamish Hamilton to publish Han Kang’s bestselling book of 'reflections, words and light'

Hamish Hamilton has acquired a new book from Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Han Kang, to be published in March 2026.

Light and Thread was first published in Korea in April 2025 by Moonji, where it sold 10,000 copies on its first day on sale. It has been translated from the Korean by Maya West, e yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris.

Hamish Hamilton will publish as a small A-format hardback in March 2026, alongside Hogarth in the United States. Rights were acquired by publishing director Simon Prosser from Laurence Laluyaux at RCW.

In the book, Han Kang draws together the threads of her work and life, tracing the connections between her interior and exterior worlds through a sequence of essays, poems, photographs and diaries.

"A book of reflections, of words and light, it has at its heart the tiny, north-facing courtyard garden at her home, cultivated solely through the reflected sunlight of the mirrors which she must move throughout the day, as the earth turns on its axis," the publisher says.

"In a poem written at eight years old, Han Kang imagined a ‘gold thread’ of connection – an idea that she explores here with luminous attention, beginning with her Nobel lecture.

"She writes of the wonder of following the thread we call language into the depths of other hearts, and her profound sense of an electric current which joins writer and reader. Both intimate and illuminating, Light and Thread is a book for all readers of Han Kang’s unique body of work."

Simon Prosser said: "To publish this special book – the latest in Kang’s remarkable sequence of works – is a joy. The most luminous and vital of writers, she sees deeply and purely, and through her words we can look at the world – and what it means to be alive – with a new clarity. She opens our eyes and she opens our hearts. There is no other writer like her."

Kang said: "As I arranged the essays, poems, diary entries, and photographs to be included in this book, I imagined all of its spaces – from the first page to the last – enveloped in light. I am grateful and glad that this light, imbued into this English translation, continues to encounter readers."