The Vegetarian (Korean: 채식주의자; RR: Chaesikjuuija) is a 2007 novel by South Korean author Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. Based on Han's 1997 short story "The Fruit of My Woman", The Vegetarian is a three-part novel set in modern-day Seoul and tells the story of Yeong-hye, a part-time graphic artist and home-maker, whose decision to stop eating meat after a bloody nightmare about human cruelty leads to devastating consequences in her personal and familial life.
Published on 30 October 2007 in South Korea by Changbi Publishers, The Vegetarian was received as "very extreme and bizarre" by the South Korean audience. "Mongolian Mark", the second and central part of the novel, was awarded the prestigious Yi Sang Literary Prize. It has been translated into at least thirteen languages, including English, French, Spanish, and Chinese.
The Vegetarian is Han's first novel to be translated into English. The translation was conducted by the British translator Deborah Smith, and was published in January 2015 in the UK and February 2016 in the US, after which it received international critical acclaim, with critics praising Han's writing style and Smith's translation. In May 2016, it won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. The Vegetarian thus became the first recipient of the award after its reconfiguration in 2015, prior to which it was awarded to an author's body of work rather than a single novel. It is considered to be Korean translated literature's biggest win since Kyung-Sook Shin's Please Look After Mom won the closing Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012. Prior to it winning the prize, The Vegetarian had sold close to 20,000 copies in the nine years since its first publication. In June 2016, Time included the book in its list of best books of 2016.
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