The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Han Kang (1970-). South Korean novelist.

See Paul's post below for a bibliography

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I couldn't believe that we didn't have a thread for Han Kang here already, but now that she is a Nobel Laureate we need one.

Bibliography

Source: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lit...

여수의 사랑 (1995) - “Love of Yeosu”. Short stories

검은 사슴 (1998) - “Black Deer”. Novel

아기 부처 (1999) - “Baby Buddha”. Novella

내 여자의 열매 (2000) - “Fruits of My Woman”. Short stories

그대의 차가운 손 (2002) - “Your Cold Hands”. Novel

내 이름은 태양꽃 (2002) - “My Name is Sun Flower”. Novella

붉은 꽃 이야기 / 지은이 (2003) - “The Story of the Red Flower”. Novella.

사랑과, 사랑을 둘러싼 것들 (2003) - “Love and Things Surrounding Love”. Essays

가만가만 부르는 노래 (2007) - “Quietly Sung Songs”. Essays

천둥 꼬마 선녀 번개 꼬마 선녀 (2007) - “Thunder Little Fairy Lightning Little Fairy". Children’s book

채식주의자 (2007) - The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith (2015). Novel.

눈물상자 (2008) - “Tear Basket”. Short stories.

바람이 분다, 가라 (2010) - “The Wind Blows, Go”. Novel

희랍어 시간 (2011) - Greek Lessons, translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won (2023). Novel

노랑무늬영원 (2012) - “Fire Salamander”. Short stories
includes 에우로파, Europa, translated by Deborah Smith (2019)

서랍 에 저녁 을 넣어 두었다 (2013) - “I Put The Evening in the Drawer”. Poetry

회복 하는 인간 / Convalescence (2013) - Bilingual edition, translated by Jeon Seung-Hee. Novella.

소년이 온다 (2014) - Human Acts, translated by Deborah Smith (2016). Novel

흰 (2016) - The White Book, translated by Deborah Smith (2017). Novel

작별하지 않는다 (2021) - We Do Not Part, translated by Emily Yae Won and Paige Aniyah Morris (2025). Novel

한 강 (2022) - “Han Kang”. Collection.

Hugh - the Korean from the Nobel Committee has a lot of info like publisher's location and name (and names e.g. of illustators) that makes this a bit messy. I've tidied up - also added links to the books (the double square brackets meant yours didn't link) and added translators' names.

Don't know if you want to delete your first post - or delete main content at least.

Thanks Paul, in terms of available English-language texts, there are short pieces available via Granta's and/or the New Yorker's site but, iirc, essentially extracts from/pieces that later became part of full-length works translated into English. But might be useful as tasters for anyone not familiar with her work:

https://granta.com/the-fruit-of-my-wo...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

https://granta.com/white-kang/

Am obviously odd as caught up in questions around how the prize money works in terms of exchange rates and taxation!

Thank you so much for the list of texts available in English.
I have ordered three (The Vegetarian, Greek Lessons and Human Act) and hope to be able to read them soon.
Sadly, I did not read anything by Han Kang before.

Well, I can't wait to read her! Alwynne's and Paul's reviews always tempted me to do it well before the Nobel. When I congratulated our students from South Korea, they were so thrilled! Of course, they all heard it from their families back home within minutes of the announcement. I hope this turns the wider global readership not just to Kang, but also to the richness of the Korean literature.

Vesna wrote: "Well, I can't wait to read her! Alwynne's and Paul's reviews always tempted me to do it well before the Nobel. When I congratulated our students from South Korea, they were so thrilled! Of course, ..."

That's great Vesna, I just really like and admire her work.

Amrei wrote: "Thank you so much for the list of texts available in English.
I have ordered three (The Vegetarian, Greek Lessons and Human Act) and hope to be able to read them soon.
Sadly, I did not read anythi..."

I also hope that this turns to wider global readership of Korean literature. I read 8 Lives of the Centrury-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee because it was long listed for the 2024 Women's Prize. It was one of my favorites from that group.

I can't tell if I'm just noticing more Korean content or if it's becoming more popular. After watching Squid Games my husband and I watched a Korean reality show Physical 100 which was a lot of fun and I see a lot more Korean restaurants popping up in my city (Richmond, VA, USA).

I loved The Vegetarian and her short story "Fruit of My Woman" that it was based on. Highly recommend reading them together.

Zelic wrote: "Amrei wrote: "Thank you so much for the list of texts available in English.
I have ordered three (The Vegetarian, Greek Lessons and Human Act) and hope to be able to read them soon.
Sadly, I did n..."

If you're interested in the spread of Hallyu aka the Korean Wave then these will help fill you in, starting with growing popularity in other parts of East Asian, then Europe then America. As well as Kdrama and food, there's also Kpop, Korean beauty products, Korean fiction etc

https://martinroll.com/resources/arti...

https://theconversation.com/hallyu-th...

https://red.msudenver.edu/2023/korean...

The author's Nobel lecture today, translated (as is We do Not Part) by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris:

https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/20...

The conclusion of a speech that starts with uncovering a box of poems she wrote when she was 8:

In the pamphlet I uncovered in the old shoe box last January, my past self, writing in April of 1979, had asked herself:

Where is love?
What is love?

Whereas, until the autumn of 2021, when We Do Not Part was published, I had considered these two problems to be the ones at my core:

Why is the world so violent and painful?
And yet how can the world be this beautiful?

For a long time, I believed that the tension and internal struggle between these sentences was the driving force behind my writing. From my first novel to my most recent one, the questions I had kept in mind continued to shift and unfold, yet these were the only two that remained constant. But two or three years ago, I began to have doubts. Had I really only begun asking myself about love — about the pain that links us — after the Korean publication of Human Acts in the spring of 2014? From my earliest novel to my latest, hadn’t the deepest layer of my inquiries always been directed towards love? Could it be that love was in fact my life’s oldest and most fundamental undertone?

Love is located in a private place called ‘my heart’, the child wrote in April 1979.
(It is inside my thump-thumping beating chest.)
And as for what love was, this was her reply.
(It is the gold thread connecting between our hearts.)

When I write, I use my body. I use all the sensory details of seeing, of listening, of smelling, of tasting, of experiencing tenderness and warmth and cold and pain, of noticing my heart racing and my body needing food and water, of walking and running, of feeling the wind and rain and snow on my skin, of holding hands. I try to infuse those vivid sensations that I feel as a mortal being with blood coursing through her body into my sentences. As if I am sending out an electric current. And when I sense this current being transmitted to the reader, I am astonished and moved. In these moments I experience again the thread of language that connects us, how my questions are relating with readers through that electric, living thing. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who have connected with me through that thread, as well as to all those who may come to do so.

Han Kang’s first nonfiction book (in English)—Light and Thread—is expected to be published by Hogarth in the U.S. and Penguin in the UK in March 2026.

In this light-filled and multi-faceted book, Han Kang draws together the threads of her work and life, tracing the connections between her interior and exterior worlds through a sequence of essays, poems, photographs, and diaries, brilliantly translated by Maya West and e. yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris.

Thanks - exciting - suspect the Nobel lecture will be a key part of this but sounds like a lot more has been added