Europa
by Han Kang
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What It’s About
Europa is a tiny book with a long echo. This chapbook, published by Strangers Press as number 03 of their Yeoyu series, is just over 30 pages, but it holds a quiet intensity that stays with you.
I had to go out of my way to get this one. It’s not widely available. I actually had it shipped to my hotel in London during a trip, because Han Kang is one of my favorite authors and I didn’t want to miss it.
The story follows two people, loosely connected by a past friendship, who find themselves navigating something deeper. One is living with unspoken trauma. The other is living through a slow transformation: physical, emotional, maybe even spiritual.
“Even after going through such a thing, we have to go on living.”
What begins as a reunion becomes something much more intimate. The narrator doesn’t just want to be close to the other person. There’s a longing to be them. To live inside their voice, their shape, their way of being. It’s not quite love, not quite identity. Something in between.
My Take
This wasn’t the story I expected. It’s sparse, but charged. Every sentence feels like it’s carrying something underneath.
Gender, grief, violence, and desire move through the pages quietly. Nothing is said outright. But you feel everything. The care between them. The pain that’s never fully named. The strange closeness that isn’t always easy to define.
It’s not a book that explains itself. It just sits with you. And if you let it, it unsettles you in the best way.
Why It’s Worth Reading
If you’ve read The Vegetarian or Human Acts, you’ll recognize Han Kang’s emotional precision—how she writes into silence, rather than over it. Europa is smaller than those books, but no less haunting.
It’s hard to find, yes. But if you can get your hands on it, it’s a quiet gem worth holding onto.
Where to Find It:
Buy on Amazon • Maybe at your local library (WorldCat.org)
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