The journey of Kyungha unfolds as she rushes to help her hospitalized friend Inseon, whose pet bird is left in peril. Battling a snowstorm on Jeju Island, Kyungha confronts not only the physical challenges of her trek but also the haunting history of a tragic massacre that affected Inseon's family. This novel intricately weaves themes of friendship, memory, and the importance of acknowledging the past, transforming a personal story into a broader reflection on trauma and resilience.
A powerful novel of the saving grace of language and human connection, from
the celebrated author of The VegetarianIn a classroom in Seoul, a young woman
watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but
has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for
day by day he is losing his sight.Soon they discover a deeper pain binds them
together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her
mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the
pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures
and languages.Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought
together at a moment of private anguish - the fading light of a man losing his
vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are
the very things that draw them to one another. Slowly the two discover a
profound sense of unity - their voices intersecting with startling beauty, as
they move from darkness to light, from silence to expression.Greek Lessons is
a tender love letter to human intimacy and connection, a novel to awaken the
senses, vividly conjuring the essence of what it means to be alive.PRAISE FOR
THE VEGETARIAN:'Sensual, provocative and violent, ripe with potent images,
startling colours and disturbing questions. Sentence by sentence, The
Vegetarian is an extraordinary experience' Guardian'A startling new novel...
It is written in cool, still, poetic but matter-of-fact short sentences,
translated luminously by Deborah Smith, who is obviously a genius' Deborah
Levy'Enthralling... It has a surreal and spellbinding quality, especially in
its passage on nature and the physical landscape, so beautiful and so
magnificently impervious to the human suffering around it' Independent
In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. Soon they discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages. Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish - the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are the very things that draw them to one another. Slowly the two discover a profound sense of unity - their voices intersecting with startling beauty, as they move from darkness to light, from silence to expression. Greek Lessons is a tender love letter to human intimacy and connection, a novel to awaken the senses, vividly conjuring the essence of what it means to be alive. Translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won.
Compulsively readable, universally relevant and deeply resonant... It
lacerates, it haunts, it dreams, it mourns... 'Human Acts' is, in equal parts,
beautiful and urgent.-New York Times Book Review Human Acts is unique in the
intensity and scale of this brutality... [T]he novel details a bloody history
that was deliberately forgotten and is only now being recovered.-The Nation
[Han Kang's] new novel, Human Acts, showcases the same talent for writing
about corporeal horrors, this time in the context of the 1980 Gwangju
uprising.-TIME Magazine Han Kang's Human Acts speak the unspeakable. -Vanity
Fair The long wake of the killings plays out across the testimonies of
survivors as well as the dead, in scenarios both gorily real and beautifully
surreal.-Vulture Human Acts is stunning. Book reviews evaluate how well a book
does what it sets out to do, and so we sometimes write nice things about books
that perfectly fulfill trivial aims. Otherwise, we'd always be complaining
that romance novels or political thrillers fail to justify the ways of God to
men. But Han Kang has an ambition as large as Milton's struggle with God: She
wants to reconcile the ways of humanity to itself.-NPR.org Engrossing... The
result is torturously compelling, a relentless portrait of death and agony
that never lets you look away. Han's prose-as translated by Deborah Smith-is
both spare and dreamy, full of haunting images and echoing language. She
mesmerizes, drawing you into the horrors of Gwangju; questioning humanity,
implicating everyone... Unnerving and painfully immediate.-Los Angeles Times
Revelatory ... nothing short of breathtaking... In the end, what Han has re-
created is not just an extraordinary record of human suffering during one
particularly contentious period in Korean history, but also a written
testament to our willingness to risk discomfort, capture, even death in order
to fight for a cause or help others in times of need.-San Francisco Chronicle
But where Kang excels is in her unflinching, unsentimental descriptions of
death. I am hard pressed to think of another novel that deals so vividly and
convincingly with the stages of physical decay. Kang's prose does not make for
easy reading, but there is something admirable about this clear-eyed rendering
of the end of life.-Boston Globe Absorbing... Han uses her talents as a
storyteller of subtlety and power to bring this struggle out of the middle
distance of 'history' and into the intimate space of the irreplaceable human
individual.-Minneapolis Star-Tribune Kang explores the sprawling trauma of
political brutality with impressive nuance and the piercing emotional truth
that comes with masterful fiction... a fiercely written, deeply upsetting, and
beautifully human novel.-Kirkus Reviews Kang is an incredible storyteller who
raises questions about the purpose of humanity and the constant tension
between good and evil through the heartbreaking experiences of her characters.
Her poetic language shifts fluidly from different points of view, while her
fearless use of raw, austere diction emulates the harsh conflicts and emotions
raging throughout the plot. This jarring portrayal of the Gwangju
demonstrations will keep readers gripped until the end.-Booklist (starred)
With Han Kang's The Vegetarian awarded the 2016 Man Booker International
Prize, her follow-up will garner extra scrutiny. Bottom line? This new work,
again seamlessly translated by Deborah Smith, who also provides an
indispensable contextual introduction, is even more stupendous.-Library
Journal (starred) Pristine, expertly paced, and gut-wrenching... Human Acts
grapples with the fallout of a massacre and questions what humans are willing
to die for and in turn what they must live through. Kang approaches these
difficult and inexorable queries with originality and fearlessness, making
Human Acts a must-read for 2017.-Chicago Review of Books Though her subject
matt
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.
