The Works of Han Kang | One-Minute Crash Course | 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature

The South Korean author Han Kang was awarded the 2024 Literature Prize. In her works, Han confronts historical traumas and unspoken rules, and portrays human vulnerability. Her international breakthrough came with the novel The Vegetarian, in which a woman's choice to stop eating meat has violent consequences. Here the woman's husband describes a family dinner. Eat it. Listen to what your father is telling you and eat. But everything I say is for your own good, so why act like this if it makes you ill? The fatherly affection that was almost choking the old man made a powerful impression on me, and I was moved to tears in spite of myself. Probably everyone gathered there felt the same. With one hand my wife pushed away his chopsticks, which were shaking silently in empty space. Father, I don't eat meat. In an instant, his flat palm cleaved the empty space.