Author: Gang Han
Publisher: Changbi
276 pages | 128 * 194 mm
Important! Please read before you order! |
>>>This book is written in Korean. |
About This Book
Vegetarian is a compilation of three novelettes which questions the meaning of
desire, relationship, and existence through the lives of Yeong-hye and her
family. The three stories, originally published separately, are put together in
a linear order, but the perspective of the segments all differs showing the
inner desires of the character.
In the first segment Vegetarian, which takes the view of Young-hye's husband,
Young-hye suddenly declares that she will quit eating meat after having a
grotesque dream filledwith images of blood. The husband is disturbed with this
sudden abnormal behavior and starts thinking her as an embarrassment. The second
segment Mongolian Blue Spot, which won the author the prestigious Yi Sang
Literary Award, is told from the perspective of the husband of Young-hye's
sister. A video artist in profession, he suddenly feels a weird but irresistible
attraction towards Young-hye after he hears that she still preserves the
Mongolian spot at the age over twenty. The two eventually have an affair, which
causes both of them ending up at the psychiatric ward. In the third and last
segment, this time it's In-hye, Young-hye's sister, who is watching Young-hye in
a vegetative state in hospital and moving toward death. But in fact it is Young-hye
who is finally drawing near to what she had always yearned for - turning into a
tree.
A stunning work of chilling beauty by author Han Kang, one of the leading Korean
novelists of her generation, who has a reputation to have a tragic sense of life
uncharacteristic of her young age.
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