La vegetariana

After a bloody dream, Yeong-hye, an ordinary wife in Seoul, decides to stop eating meat. What looks like a diet becomes a crisis for her husband, her parents and the sister who tries to hold the family together. The novel has three sections, each told by someone else: the husband, a brother-in-law who is a video artist, and her sister In-hye. Yeong-hye herself speaks very little, which is part of Han Kang's point.

Literary fiction that is short, spare and unsettling is the draw here. Expect no neat explanation, only a hard look at conformity, family control, and the violence hidden in everyday expectations.

Deep, inward-looking, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

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