About the Author

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

“Surreal . . . [A] mesmerizing mix of sex and violence .”—Alexandra Alter, The New York Times

“[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

“Indebted to Kafka, this story of a South Korean woman’s radical transformation, which begins after she forsakes meat, will have you reading with your hand over your mouth in shock.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

“The Vegetarian has an eerie universality that gets under your skin and stays put irrespective of nation or gender.”—Laura Miller, Slate

“Slim and spiky and extremely disturbing . . . I find myself thinking about it weeks after I finished.”—Jennifer Weiner, PopSugar

“It takes a gifted storyteller to get you feeling ill at ease in your own body. Yet Han Kang often set me squirming with her first novel in English, at once claustrophobic and transcendent.”—Chicago Tribune

"Compelling . . . [A] seamless union of the visceral and the surreal.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

“A complex, terrifying look at how seemingly simple decisions can affect multiple lives . . . In a world where women’s bodies are constantly under scrutiny, the protagonist’s desire to disappear inside of herself feels scarily familiar.”—Vanity Fair

“Elegant . . . a stripped-down, thoughtful narrative . . . about human psychology and physiology.”—HuffPost

“This elegant-yet-twisted horror story is all about power and its relationship with identity. It's chilling in the best ways, so buckle in and turn down the lights.”—Elle

“This haunting, original tale explores the eros, isolation and outer limits of a gripping metamorphosis that happens in plain sight. . . . Han Kang has written a remarkable novel with universal themes about isolation, obsession, duty and desire.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Complex and strange . . . Han’s prose moves swiftly, riveted on the scene unfolding in a way that makes this story compulsively readable. . . . [The Vegetarian] demands you to ask important questions, and its vivid images will be hard to shake. This is a book that will stay with you.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“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