By Honorary Reporter Sumith Shet from India

Photo and images = Man Booker International Prize

Novelist Han Kang has been famous in Korea for a while, but she recently gained global fame after the translation of her books into other languages. In 2016, she became the first Korean winner of the Man Booker International Prize for "The Vegetarian."

Deborah Smith (left), a Briton who translated "The Vegetarian" into English, and Han Kang pose after winning the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.

The following are her three most famous books.

The Vegetarian (2007)

This three-part novel came out in 2007 and has been translated into at least 13 languages including English, French, Spanish and Chinese. The English-language edition released in February 2016 won international critical acclaim. In May that year, Han became the first Korean to win the Man Booker award for this work.

Based on Han's 1997 short story "The Fruit of My Woman," "The Vegetarian" is about a woman whose decision to stop eating meat after having a nightmare on human cruelty leads to devastating consequences in her personal life. The book shows the fight between social expectations and the protagonist's primal self. 

Human Acts (2014)

This novel was inspired by the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement of 1980 and is a heartbreaking novel of human suffering and resilience. Critics call this book Han's best novel, and this book earned Korea's Manhae Prize for Literature in 2014 and Italy's Malaparte Prize in 2017. 

The novel deals with the death of a young boy, Kang Dong-ho, amid the uprising. The seven chapters chronicles the time from the incident to present day, and the narrative expands to describe the incident's impact on other people. Several characters give their perspectives, and the novel follows Dong-ho's life and his circumstances at the time of the uprising.

The White Book (2016)

This nonfiction work is dedicated to Han's older sister, who died in their mother's arms a few hours after she was born. This book was shortlisted in 2018 for the Man Booker. 

The book is like a letter from Han to her tragic sister containing the author's thoughts on grief and how to mourn for a sibling that she never met.

enny0611@korea.kr

*This article is written by a Korea.net Honorary Reporter. Our group of Honorary Reporters are from all around the world, and they share with Korea.net their love and passion for all things Korean.