Read these books by Nobel Prize 2024 winner Han Kang

The South Korean author was recently conferred with the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first Asian woman to be conferred with the honour. We deep-dive into her books, and her insightful podcast interviews

The Vegetarian: A bite-sized review

Han Kang’s International Booker Prize winning novel, The Vegetarian, is a searing look at the radical choices the protagonist makes in a rigid society and their consequent costs. It traces the life of a young Korean woman, Yeong-Hye, who wakes up from a visceral dream one day and decides to turn vegetarian against the backdrop of an imperceptive environment.

Kang’s decision of giving readers three different points of view to portray this helps us witness how various people in the protagonist’s life — her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister — deal with her vegetarianism. What we get is a tapestry of misunderstandings, a refusal of her family to fully comprehend Yeong Hye’s decision, leading to her physically and mentally weakened condition. One hears Yeong-Hye only through her narration of her dream to her husband.

Deborah Smith’s translation brings out the manifestations of violence prevalent throughout the book without naming them. The details speak for themselves. The narrative movement is cinematic, such that at no point does one feel one is reading a translated text. Readers will find the last chapter particularly poignant.

Further recommendations

Read

The White Book: Written as fragments, the protagonist wrestles with grief, as she mourns the loss of her sister through the colour white. While white stands for death, Kang also considers how it stands, just as much, for rebirth and life. Short passages switch between the most tangible objects like the paint on the door, salt, snowflakes, to intangible possibilities like boundary, the direction of the light, a laugh, and parting.

Human Acts: Kang’s sixth title is an exploration of the past. It draws from incidents that occurred in Gwangju, South Korea, in the year 1980. The city saw a massive student uprising, a response to the change in power and the implementation of martial law. Thousands of people were killed in the suppression by the military that followed it. Kang’s novel follows a young boy, Dong-ho, and others in his life who encountered the outrage in different ways.

Available At leading bookstores and e-stores

Listen

Louisiana Literature Podcast: While growing up, Kang spent a lot of time reading, but recollects revisiting the same texts afresh, with new questions, during her teenage years. In the episode, she shares how this shaped her as a writer. “Since I was a child, it [has been] overwhelming to look at human beings… all the things we have committed throughout history,” and at the same time, seeing “dignified human beings all around the world. It’s like an impossible riddle for me.” She reveals, while exploring the two spectrums of humanity — the sublimity and the horror — through her work.

Deborah Smith

Nobel Prize Conversations: Jenny Ryden, a member of the Nobel Committee, speaks to the author after the award in this podcast. Kang shares what it means for a writer of Korean literature to have received the award, and who inspired her in her early years. She also recommends which of her books first-time readers must begin with. On being asked how she plans to celebrate the award, the author replies, “I’m going to have tea with my son and I will celebrate it quietly tonight.”

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