Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in literature, on her novel 'The Vegetarian'

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2024

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

South Korean author Han Kang is this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature, making her the first Korean writer to win the award. In its citation, the Swedish Academy commended Han "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life." Both of these themes are present in the author's 2007 novel, The Vegetarian, which tells the story of a young woman who decides to give up meat. In today's episode, we revisit a 2016 interview between Han and NPR's Linda Wertheimer, which took place around the time of The Vegetarian's publication in English. In the interview, they discussed gender politics, how women cope with trauma, and Han's "long-lasting question about human violence."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Hong Kong has won this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. She's a South Korean writer, actually the first writer from the country to ever win the award, but she's known internationally. Her book, The Vegetarian, was translated into English and published here in the States in 2016, and Anders Olsen from
0:22.4	the Nobel Committee specifically shouted it out the morning she was announced as winner.
0:27.8	Here's what he had to say about it.
0:29.1	Han Kang's physical empathy for the vulnerable, often female lives is palpable and reinforced
0:37.2	by her metaphorically charged prose.
0:40.6	It's about a woman who decides not to eat meat, but it turns into so much more.
0:46.1	She was actually on NPR back when the English translation first came out and spoke with NPR's
0:50.7	Linda Werthammer. And in this interview, she talks a lot about her interest
0:54.9	in violence, the cruelty that we as people can enact on each other and how it's something everyone,
1:01.9	unfortunately, can relate to. That's ahead.
1:05.8	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
1:10.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.
1:15.1	On our new show, Sources and Methods.
1:17.2	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
1:21.0	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:24.8	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:30.1	A young woman named Jung He lives quietly and passively most of her life, a good girl,
1:38.0	but she suddenly decides to give up meat. Her family is perplexed at her determination to be a
1:44.0	vegetarian, and they try with varying
1:46.6	degrees of force to stop her. Hong Kong's new novel is called The Vegetarian, and you wouldn't
1:53.4	think it from the title, but this story is intense, a dark and disturbing parable. The book was
1:59.4	originally published in South Korea in 2007, but
	...

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