The Vegetarian: Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature

by Han Kang

Deborah Smith (Translator)

3.23 of 5 stars 13 ratings • 1 review • 26 shelved
Book cover for The Vegetarian

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WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE

'A strange, painfully tender exploration of the brutality of desire indulged and the fatality of desire ignored... Exquisite' Eimear McBride

Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people - dutiful wife and mild-mannered office worker. One day, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares, Yeong-hye decides to become a vegetarian. But in South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, it is a shocking act of subversion.

Yeong-hye's passive rebellion rapidly manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, from sexual sadism to attempted suicide, and in increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, as all the while she spirals further into her fantasies...

Disturbing and beautiful by turns, The Vegetarian is a revelatory novel about modern day South Korea; a tale of shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others.
  • ISBN10 1846276039
  • ISBN13 9781846276033
  • Publish Date 5 November 2015 (first published 1 January 2015)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Imprint Granta Books
  • Format Paperback
  • Pages 192
  • Language English