The Vegetarian

The Vegetarian is a novel by the South Korean writer Han Kang, first published in 2007. It is built from three linked parts and set in modern-day Seoul, and its author went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The first part is narrated by Yeong-hye's husband, a man who chose her for her ordinariness. It describes how Yeong-hye gives up meat and all animal products following a nightmare about human cruelty; she works part-time as a graphic artist and keeps the home.

Her refusal is read by the people around her as illness, defiance or a problem to be managed. Her husband, her father and her brother-in-law each react in ways that say more about them than about her, and the three sections are spoken by three different narrators, so Yeong-hye is always seen through someone else's account of her.

The book grew out of a 1997 short story by Han, "The Fruit of My Woman," and its middle section, "Mongolian Mark," won a Korean literary prize on its own. The Vegetarian is a standalone novel, and it was the first of Han's books to be translated into English.