The Vegetarian

Han Kang was born in 1970 in South Korea. In 1993 she made her literary debut as a poet, and was first published as novelist in 1994. A participant of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Han has won the Man Booker International Prize, the Yi Sang Literary Prize, the Today's Young Artist Award, and the Manhae Literary Prize. She currently works as a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.

'"Surreal...[A] mesmerizing mix of sex and violence...vivid, chiseled...Like a cursed madwoman in classical myth, Yeong-hye seems both eerily prophetic and increasingly unhinged." - Alexandra Alter, The New York Times "Ferocious...[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. There is something about short literary forms - this novel is under 200 pages - in which the allegorical and the violent gain special potency from their small packages... 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, New York Times Book Review "Astonishing...Kang viscerally explores the limits of what a human brain and body can endure, and the strange beauty that can be found in even the most extreme forms of renunciation." - Entertainment Weekly "Sometimes how a book or a film puzzles you-how it may mystify even its own creator-is the main point. The way it keeps slithering out of your grasp. The way it chats with you in the parlor even as it drags something nameless and heavy through the woods out back....That's the spirit in which to approach The Vegetarian ... The Vegetarian has an eerie universality that gets under your skin and stays put irrespective of nation or gender."- Laura Miller, Slate.com"This book is both terrifying and terrific."- Lauren Groff" The Vegetarian was slim and spiky and extremely disturbing, and I find myself thinking about it weeks after I finished." Jennifer Weiner, popsugar.com" The Vegetarian is one of the best novels I've read in years. It's incredible, daring, and stunningly moving. I loved it."- Laura van den Berg"A short novel of sexuality and madness that deserves its great success."- Ian McEwan"If it's true you are what you read, prepare to be sliced and severed, painted and slapped and fondled and broken to bits, left shocked and reeling on the other side of this stunning, dark star of a book."- Amelia Gray"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... Yeong-hye's compulsions feel more like a force of nature... A sea like that, rippling with unknowable shadow, looks all but impossible to navigate-but I'd let Han Kang take the helm any time."- Chicago Tribune "Provocative...shocking."- The Washington Post "[An] utterly deserving winner of this year's Man Booker International Prize...with haunting, almost hallucinatory beauty."- Entertainment Weekly , Best Books of 2016 so far"This is a deceptive novel, its canvas much larger than the mild social satire that one initially imagines. Kang has bigger issues to raise... The matter of female autonomy assumes urgency and poignancy."- The Boston Globe "Compelling...[A] seamless union of the visceral and the surreal."- Los Angeles Review of Books "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"If you love books that grab you by the throat and keep you wide-eyed and shocked throughout, you've got to pick up Han Kang's The Vegetarian."- EW.com"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."- VanityFair.com"A sharply written allegory that extends far beyond its surreal premise to unexpected depths."- The Millions"Visceral and hypnotic."- Michele Filgate"An elegant tale, in three parts, of a woman whose sudden turn

This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof

Copyright © 2015 Han Kang

The Vegetarian

Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way. To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn't even attracted to her. Middling height; bobbed hair neither long nor short; jaundiced, sickly-looking skin; somewhat prominent cheekbones; her timid, sallow aspect told me all I needed to know. As she came up to the table where I was waiting, I couldn't help but notice her shoes - the plainest black shoes imaginable. And that walk of hers - neither fast nor slow, striding nor mincing.

However, if there wasn't any special attraction, nor did any particular drawbacks present themselves, and therefore there was no reason for the two of us not to get married. The passive personality of this woman in whom I could detect neither freshness nor charm, or anything especially rened, suited me down to the ground. There was no need to affect intellectual leanings in order to win her over, or to worry that she might be comparing me to the preening men who pose in fashion catalogues, and she didn't get worked up if I happened to be late for one of our meetings. The paunch that started appearing in my mid-twenties, my skinny legs and forearms that steadfastly refused to bulk up in spite of my best efforts, the inferiority complex I used to have about the size of my penis - I could rest assured that I wouldn't have to fret about such things on her account.

I've always inclined towards the middle course in life. At school I chose to boss around those who were two or three years my junior, and with whom I could act the ringleader, rather than take my chances with those my own age, and later I chose which college to apply to based on my chances of obtaining a scholarship large enough for my needs. Ultimately, I settled for a job where I would be provided with a decent monthly salary in return for diligently carrying out my allotted tasks, at a company whose small size meant they would value my unremarkable skills. And so it was only natural that I would marry the most run-of-the-mill woman in the world. As for women who were pretty, intelligent, strikingly sensual, the daughters of rich families - they would only ever have served to disrupt my carefully ordered existence.

In keeping with my expectations, she made for a completely ordinary wife who went about things without any distasteful frivolousness. Every morning she got up at six a.m. to prepare rice and soup, and usually a bit of sh. From adolescence she'd contributed to her family's income through the odd bit of part-time work. She ended up with a job as an assistant instructor at the computer graphics college she'd attended for a year, and was subcontracted by a manhwa publisher to work on the words for their speech bubbles, which she could do from home.

She was a woman of few words. It was rare for her to demand anything of me, and however late I was in getting home she never took it upon herself to kick up a fuss. Even when our days off happened to coincide, it wouldn't occur to her to suggest we go out somewhere together. While I idled the afternoon away, TV remote in hand, she would shut herself up in her room. More than likely she would spend the time reading, which was practically her only hobby. For some unfathomable reason, reading was something she was able to really immerse herself in - reading books that looked so dull I couldn't even bring myself to so much as take a look inside the covers. Only at mealtimes would she open the door and silently emerge to prepare the food. To be sure, that kind of wife, and that kind of lifestyle, did mean that I was unlikely to find my days particularly stimulating. On the other hand, if I'd had one of those wives whose phones ring on and off all day long with calls from friends or co-workers, or whose nagging periodically lea