The Vegetarian

Winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Publisher's Weekly • Buzzfeed • Entertainment Weekly • Time • Wall Street Journal • Bustle • Elle • The Economist • Slate • The Huffington Post • The St. Louis Dispatch • Electric Literature
Featured in the New York Times selection of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century"
A beautiful, unsettling novel about rebellion and taboo, violence and eroticism, and the twisting metamorphosis of a soul
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.

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.