The Vegetarian

Mr. Cheong, considers his wife to be "completely unremarkable in any way". He explains that when he first met her, he was not even attracted to her and that suits him just fine. Mr. Cheong is content meandering through life; it seems as if his only goal is to live a conventional, unremarkable life. He chooses to marry his wife since he thinks she would prove to be a good, dutiful wife who would fit nicely into the kind of lifestyle he seeks. After several years of relatively normal marriage, Mr. Cheong wakes up to find his wife disposing of all meat products in the house. He demands an explanation, and Yeong-hye replies vaguely that "I had a dream." Mr. Cheong attempts to rationalize his wife's life decision over the next few months and to deal with vegetarian meals at home, but eventually calls Yeong-hye's family and an intervention is scheduled. While around the dinner table, Yeong-hye's family attempts to convince her to eat meat; her father, who served in Vietnam and is known for his stern temperament, slaps her when she refuses. Her father then asks a reluctant Mr. Cheong and Yeong-hye's brother Yeong-ho to hold her arms while he force-feeds her a piece of pork. Yeong-hye breaks away, spits out the pork, grabs a fruit knife, and slits her wrist. The incredulous family rushes her to a hospital where she recovers and where Mr. Cheong admits to himself that she has become mentally unstable. As the section ends Yeong-hye manages to walk out of the hospital and when she is tracked down, she reveals a bird in her palm, which has a "predator's bite" in it, and she asks "Have I done something wrong?"

The husband of Yeong-hye's sister In-hye, whose name remains unstated, is a video artist. He imagines a love-making scene between two people, with their bodies decorated by painted flowers and, upon learning that Yeong-hye has a birthmark shaped like a flower petal, he forms a plan to paint and record her in order to bring this artistic image to life. It is revealed that he is attracted to Yeong-hye, especially after checking up on her—the narrator reveals that Yeong-hye has been served divorce papers by Mr. Cheong—and finding her unabashedly naked in her apartment. Yeong-hye agrees to model for him and he paints flowers across her body in a studio rented from an art professor in the area. He follows up this project with a second piece of art, which involves recruiting a fellow artist to join Yeong-hye in a sexually-explicit film. When the brother-in-law asks if the two will engage in actual intercourse, his friend becomes ashamed and leaves. Yeong-hye, who had become aroused during this sequence, claims it was because of the flowers painted on the man's body. The brother-in-law asks a friend to paint flowers on him and visits Yeong-hye, where the two engage in a recorded moment of intercourse. When his wife discovers the film, she calls "emergency services", claiming that both he and Yeong-hye are mentally unwell. He contemplates jumping off of the balcony, most likely to his death, but remains "rooted to the spot" and is escorted out of the building by the authorities.

In-hye remains the only member of the family to support Yeong-hye after her mental and physical decline. She has separated from her husband after the events of the previous section, and is left to take care of their son in addition to her deteriorating sister. As Yeong-hye's behavior worsens, she is admitted to a mental hospital at Mount Ch'ukseong, where, despite receiving high-level treatment for mania, she behaves gradually more plant-like. On one occasion she escapes the hospital and is found standing in a forest "soaked with rain as if she herself were one of the glistening trees". In-hye, who constantly ruminates about the pain of dealing with her divorce and the care of her child and who throughout the chapter shows signs of her own depression and mental instability, visits Yeong-hye regularly and continues to try to get her to eat. Yeong-hye has given up food altogether, and when In-hye witnesses the doctors force-feeding her and threatening sedation to prevent vomiting, In-hye bites the nurse holding her back and grabs her sister. In-hye and Yeong-hye are driven to a different hospital by ambulance, and In-hye observes trees as they pass by.

Han first got the idea of writing about vegetation or plants when, as a university student, she came across the work of the noted South Korean writer Yi Sang. In particular, she was struck by the quote "I believe that humans should be plants."[2] Han's lifelong exploration of the themes of violence and humanity are also sampled in the book, which primarily deals with human beings' natural and daily choices in terms of food. Talking to Sarah Shin for The White Review, she said, "While writing The Vegetarian, I was harboring questions about human violence and the (im)possibility of innocence. On the reverse side of the protagonist Yeong-hye’s extreme attempt to turn her back on violence by casting off her own human body and transforming into a plant lies a deep despair and doubt about humanity."[2] In February 2016, while talking to Bethanne Patrick of Literary Hub, Han explained, "The idea for the book originally came to me as an image of a woman turning into a plant. I wrote a short story, “The Fruit of My Woman,” in 1997, where a woman literally turns into a plant. After several years (2003–2004) I reworked this image in The Vegetarian, in a darker and fiercer way."[10][11]

In a February 2016 interview with The Guardian, Han Kang said, "As a teenager I suffered typical questions: why pain, why death? I thought that books held the answers, but curiously I realized they contain only questions. Their writers were weak and vulnerable just like we were." Writing the book was a difficult task, she said, with the main cause being her joint problems which started in her mid-30s. She wrote the entire novella in longhand.[12] Han received help from a video artist and a psychiatric hospital when researching the book. The second part of the book is primarily inspired by Han's experiences with the aforementioned artist whose body of work was extensively studied.[10]

The Vegetarian was first published in Korean in 2007 in South Korea as Chaeshikjueuija by Changbi Publishers. ASIA Publishers subsequently bought the rights to the book and published the English translation for distribution in South Korea. It also published the English versions of Han's short story "Convalescence", and her 2016 novel Human Acts.[13]

• Han, Kang. (2004, Summer). Chaeshikjueuija [The Vegetarian] The Quarterly Changbi, 124(2). [In Korean]
• Han, Kang. (2004, Autumn). Monggobanjeom [Mongolian Mark] Literature & Society, 67(3). [In Korean]
• Han, Kang. (2005, Winter). Namubulkkot [Flaming Trees] MunhakPan, 17(4). [In Korean]
• Han, Kang. (2007). Chaeshikjueuija [The Vegetarian]. Seoul, The Republic of Korea: Changbi Publishers [In Korean]

Chaeshikjueuija [The Vegetarian] published by Changbi Publishers in 2007, while the title is Chaeshikjueuija [The Vegetarian] as the first short story of the novel is the title piece of it, contains all the three short stories each of which was published previously in 3 separate South Korean literary magazines, and it is the original script translated into English by Deborah Smith.

The Vegetarian has been translated into twenty-three languages since its publication in 2007. Following is a list containing information about the translated works.

The book was translated from Korean into English by Deborah Smith, a British translator, who has been translating Korean into English since 2010. She is the founder of Tilted Axis Press, a non-profit publishing house focusing on contemporary fiction specifically from Asia. Speaking at the Seoul International Book Fair on 15 June 2016, Smith said that a translator "must be unfaithful to some aspects in order to be faithful to others. I try to stay faithful to the spirit, and faithful to the letter as much as I can, without compromising the spirit."[34] Talking about the process, Han said, "Deborah usually sends me the file of her translation after she finishes, with notes and questions. And I send it back to her with my answers and notes. It is just like having a chat endlessly. I truly enjoy this process. I am lucky to have met Deborah, a wonderful translator who can render subtlety and delicacy."[10] Smith has said that her first attempt at Korean translation involved "looking up practically every other word in the dictionary".[35] Smith has translated some of Han's other works, including Human Acts (2016) and The White Book (2017).

The second part of the novella, "Mongolian Mark", was awarded the Yi Sang Literary Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in South Korea.[2]

In 2016, the English translated edition of the book won the Man Booker International Prize for fiction, with the judging panel citing it as "unforgettably powerful and original".[3] The book became the first winner of the prize for which only one work of the author was judged, as compared to previous prizes which were awarded for collective works by an author. The novel beat The Story of the Lost Child by the Italian writer Elena Ferrante and A Strangeness in My Mind by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, both of which were considered as frontrunners.[35]

The prize money of GB£50,000 was shared by Han and Smith.[3] The prize catapulted the book's international sales, as a further 462,000 copies were ordered and printed by Changbi Publishers to assuage the demand. Commenting on the sales, Han said, "I am overwhelmed. I had thought the previous 20,000 copies sold was good enough. I feel that Korean literature is starting to become a trend, now is just the beginning."[6]