The vegetarian

A simple gesture—refusing to eat meat—becomes an absolute act of rebellion. Yeong-hye, the protagonist, decides to give up meat after a disturbing dream. What begins as a personal choice quickly becomes an intimate and familial war, in which the female body is the battlefield between conformity and the desire for purity.

Yeong-hye's decision is seen as madness, but her refusal is, in fact, a refusal of all forms of violence: physical, patriarchal, symbolic.

The narrative, divided into three parts, follows the protagonist's process of dissolution. Han Kang writes with precision and compassion. Yeong-hye's transformation evokes Kafka.

 “I dreamed that blood was flowing from my mouth, and I realized that I could never eat meat again.”

Han Kang was born in 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea. She is one of the most unsettling voices in contemporary literature. Her books explore the invisible violence of everyday life and the fragility of the body as a place of memory.