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The vegetarian : a novel / Han Kang ; translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith.

Catalogue Information
Field name Details
Record Number 740231
ISBN 9781846276033 (paperback)
1846276039 (paperback)
Author Han, Kang, 1970- author
Title The vegetarian : a novel / Han Kang ; translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith.
Publisher/Date London : Portobello Books, 2015.
©2015
Pagination etc. 183 pages ; 20 cm.
Contents note "This book was originally published in Korean as three separate novelettes and then compiled into a novel, 'Chaesikjuuija', published in 2007 by Changbi Publishers, Inc."--Title page verso.
Summary Note Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and hospitalisation. She unknowingly captivates her sister's husband, a video artist. She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming - impossibly, ecstatically - a tree. Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.
Language note Translated from the Korean.
Subject Married people -- Fiction
Vegetarianism -- Fiction
Korea (South) -- Fiction
Domestic fiction.
Added Author Han, Kang, 1970- translator.
Shelf Location F HAN
Catalogue Information 740231 Beginning of record . Catalogue Information 740231 Top of page .