DESCRIPTION

Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself. 
 
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

Han Kang was born in 1970 in South Korea. She is the author of The Vegetarian, winner of the International Booker Prize, as well as Human Acts, The White Book, Greek Lessons, and We Do Not Part. In 2024, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

REVIEWS

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
 
“Ferocious.”—The New York Times Book Review (Ten Best Books of the Year)

“Both terrifying and terrific.”—Lauren Groff

“[Han Kang] has been rightfully celebrated as a visionary in South Korea . . . Han’s glorious treatments of agency, personal choice, submission and subversion find form in the parable. . . . Ultimately, though, how could we not go back to Kafka? More than The Metamorphosis, Kafka’s journals and ‘A Hunger Artist’ haunt this text.”—Porochista Khakpour, The New York Times Book Review

“Dark dreams, simmering tensions, chilling violence . . . This South Korean novel is a feast. . . . It is sensual, provocative and violent, ripe with potent images, startling colors and disturbing questions. . . . Sentence by sentence, The Vegetarian is an extraordinary experience.”—The Guardian