The Vegetarian by Han Kang

The Vegetarian is Han Kang’s international breakthrough novel which won the International Booker prize in 2016, and contributed no doubt, to her 2024 Nobel Prize. It is the story of a middle aged Korean woman who one night suddenly decides not to eat meat anymore. The vegetarian herself is silent in the novel, her story is instead told in three different narratives by her husband, her brother-in-law and her older sister (in that order). Their different reactions, from abhorrence to sexual fascination to poisonous envy, stand in sharp contrast to the woman’s own mute refusal to back down or to admit to any guilt for the shame she has brought to her family. Through these responses we get a sharp portrait of a patriarchal society obsessed by careerism and rigid sometimes tyrannical social norms and conventions.

The Arabic version is translated by Mahmoud Abdelghaffar.