Han Kang interview: 'I never imagined The Vegetarian would find so many readers'

You were the first winner of the International Booker Prize after the rules changed for 2016. How did it feel to win, and what did it mean for you? 

I wrote The Vegetarian between 2003 and 2005, and published it as a full-length novel in 2007. I remember thinking that it was rather strange (in a good way) to win the International Booker Prize in 2016, more than a decade later. Since winning the prize, my other works including Human Acts, The White Book, and Greek Lessons, as well as my most recent novel, We Do Not Part, have been or are being translated into several languages. I’m grateful that the International Booker Prize has invaluably helped my works to reach a wider readership in different cultures.  

You were also the first Korean to be nominated for – and win – the award. Do you feel there was more recognition for Korean fiction as a result of your win, or was it becoming more visible internationally anyway? 

At that time, there were already excellent Korean poets and writers – such as Kim Hyesoon – whose works had been translated into English. Now, more and more works of Korean writers are being translated and published overseas. In recent years, the number of translators working on Korean literature has increased dramatically – a phenomenon that seems to be also closely related to the global success of Korean cinema and pop music. 

The novel was based on your 1997 short story ‘The Fruit of My Woman’. What inspired you to develop this into a full-length novel, or a story in three parts? 

After writing ‘The Fruit of My Woman’, I hoped to one day write a variation on that story. It was only after writing two full-length novels that I was able to do so in my third novel, The Vegetarian. In particular, Part One of The Vegetarian retains many formal traces of the original short story. For example, the husband takes on the role of an unreliable narrator, and the voice of the female protagonist appears only partially, in dreams or in monologues addressed to her mother. The difference between these two stories about a woman who becomes - or wants to become - a plant lies in the level of darkness, passion and intensity. The Vegetarian is much darker, more intense and painful; nothing supernatural happens as in ‘The Fruit of My Woman’, and the characters plunge to their doom in the midst of brutal reality. Another difference is that the protagonist of the novel has a sister, which creates a strange sense of self-identification. 

The Vegetarian combines beauty with horror. It is a story that is at times brutal and disturbing, with scenes of physical and sexual violence, force-feeding, and a foreboding sense of death. What draws you to write about darker subjects, and human actions? 

I wanted to deal with the questions I had about the world and humanity in the form of three sections about two sisters crying out in silence: one who wants to stop being part of the human race, refusing to eat meat and believing she has turned into a plant, and the other who wants to hold her sister from death, conflicted and pained herself. When I write novels, I find myself trying to reach the end of the question – not an answer – which initially drew me to write it. To penetrate my questions on the meaning of being human, it was inevitable for me to go through such intense scenes and images. 

The story is rich with visual iconography and reoccurring motifs. Did you intend to write these into the story, or did they evolve naturally? How important are these visual elements of the story? 

When I write fiction, I put a lot of emphasis on the senses. I want to convey vivid senses like hearing and touch, including visual images. I infuse these sensations into my sentences like an electric current, and then, strangely enough, the reader discerns that current. The experience of that connection is phenomenal for me every time. 

You wrote The Vegetarian in 2007, and when translated into English in 2015, many readers and reviewers felt it was a parable, a transgressive commentary on Korean etiquette and society, as well as patriarchal norms. 16 years on, how do you feel this stands up?   

I agree that the novel can be read as a parable against patriarchy. However, I do not think that this is unique to Korean society. There may be differences in degree, but wouldn’t it be  universal? I did not set out to create a portrait of Korean society in particular.  

The Vegetarian challenges conventional narrative structures. Yeong-hye’s story is told through three narrators, yet she is rarely allowed a voice. Why did you choose to write your protagonist in this manner? 

Yeong-hye is a radical and strong character. She is determined to become a plant in order to save herself. The irony, of course, is that her efforts bring her closer to death. Instead of having Yeong-hye speak directly, I wanted to show through the narration of other characters how she is observed, hated, misunderstood, pitied and objectified. I imagined the moments the readers piece together her truth as it emerges from these misunderstandings. 

As well as winning the International Booker Prize, The Vegetarian won the Yi Sang Literary Prize, receiving critical acclaim and made several ‘best of the year’ lists. How did it feel to write something that has been celebrated around the world? What impact did this have on your career in the following years? 

The three years I spent writing The Vegetarian was a difficult time for me, and I never imagined that it would one day find so many readers. At the time, I was not sure if I would be able to finish the novel, or even survive as a writer. I was suffering from severe arthritis in my fingers, so I wrote the first two parts at a leisurely pace, using a felt-tip pen that glided smoothly across the paper, and then typed out the last part holding two ballpoint pens upside down. To this day, I feel awkward when I hear about the novel’s ‘success’, especially since the protagonist, Yeong-hye, doesn’t seem to fit the word ‘success’. 

Somehow, I made it through that period of my life and finished the novel. I was then able to move on to the next one. In the final scene of The Vegetarian, Yeong-hye’s sister stares out of the ambulance window ‘As if waiting for an answer. As if protesting against something.’ Indeed, I feel that the whole novel is waiting for an answer and protesting against something. Usually, the questions I’m left with after writing a novel drive me on to the next one, so I wrote my fourth novel starting with the question in the last scene of The Vegetarian: how do we come to terms with human life, which is so beautiful and so violent at the same time? Then the question posed at the end of my fourth novel became the starting point of my new work. That’s how I have written on until now. I have started to write a new novel this summer, waiting to reach what I am going to find at the end. 

What three works of translated Korean fiction would you recommend to readers, and why? 

I would like to recommend One Hundred Shadows by Hwang Jungeun, translated by Jung Yewon; Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin, translated by Jamie Chang; and Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur. All three works never avert their gaze, but look directly at the world and the human interior.