Man Booker Int’l Prize winner Han Kang says writing book was journey for truth

In this photo released by the Associated Press on May 17, 2016, translator Deborah Smith (L) and South Korean writer Han Kang (R) pose for a photo after receiving the 2016 Man Booker International Prize at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, on May 16. (Yonhap)

SEOUL (Yonhap) — South Korean fiction writer Han Kang, who won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize for her novel “The Vegetarian,” said on Monday that writing has been a painful, persistent, self-finding process.

At the awards ceremony in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, she said, “Writing this book was the process of asking my own questions and looking for an answer.”

“Though it was sometimes painful and challenging, I tried to remain in the process as long as possible,” Han said. “I thank you all for sharing my questions.”

On her book “The Vegetarian,” she said, “My novel doesn’t have a commercial appeal but wrestles with questions about human beings. I hope the award makes readers become interested and keep reading it even though it feels a bit difficult.”

Judging panel chairman Boyd Tonkin said: “In a style both lyrical and lacerating, it reveals the impact of this great refusal both on the heroine herself and on those around her. This compact, exquisite and disturbing book will linger long in the minds, and maybe the dreams, of its readers.”

He also said, “Deborah Smith’s perfectly judged translation matches its uncanny blend of beauty and horror at every turn.”

In this photo released by the Associated Press on May 17, 2016, South Korean fiction writer Han Kang talks to media after winning the 2016 Man Booker International Prize at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. (Yonhap)

Critically acclaimed and a New York Times best-seller, the novel depicts a modern-day Korean life where disturbing, recurring nightmares force the heroine, Yeong-hye, to drop her eating habits and become a vegetarian. In a country where meat, most of the time, is the center of meals and conformity overrides individuality, her family and husband, shocked and in disbelief, regard it as an act of subversion. They try to change her mind in a forceful way, and Yeong-hye, in turn, turns more defiant and detached.

“The Vegetarian” is Han’s first novel to be translated into English. With a degree in Korean Literature from Yonsei University in Seoul, the 45-year-old Korean novelist teaches creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.

Smith, the 28-year-old translator, was monolingual until the age of 21. The British national also translated Han’s book “Human Acts,” published early this year by the London-based Portobello books, which also published “The Vegetarian” in 2015.

The 45-year-old became the first Korean writer to receive the prestigious international literature award. The top prize of ￡50,000 (US$70,995) will be equally divided between the author and the translator.

Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian”

“The Vegetarian” was long-listed in March among 155 candidates and became one of six novels short-listed last month.

“The story of a Korean woman who awakens from uneasy dreams to find herself transformed into an enigma without a key. Evocative and suggestive, ‘The Vegetarian’ startles for the depth of its strangeness,” the organizer said of the book before announcing the final winner.

Han was recently featured extensively in the May issue of “World Literature Today,” a bimonthly magazine published by the University of Oklahoma.

In the magazine, she wrote that her novel “depicts a woman who rejects … omnipresent and precarious violence even at a cost to herself,” adding that “eating meat, cooking meat, all these daily activities embody a (version of extreme) violence that has been normalized.”

Kim Seong-kon, president of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, said the award “will serve as a springboard for Korean literature to leap forward.”

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Kim Jong-deok sent a congratulatory message to Han and Smith.

“I appreciate your toil in writing a story that the world can empathize with and delivering Korean literature to the world through an outstanding translation. I hope you will play a big role in opening an era of cultural enrichment by continuing to spread Korean culture and art to the rest of the world,” he said in the message released to the media.

“She pours all her energy and soul into writing each sentence to a point where she becomes sick. I am so happy to see the painful battle against herself leading to this good result,” her husband Hong Yong-hee, professor at Kyunghee Cyber University in Seoul told Yonhap News Agency. “I feel respectful and in awe watching her fiercely writing, editing and rewriting.”

Han said: “The most important thing right now is that I keep writing. Every time I write a story, I wonder if I could ever finish it. So I will have to push the fact that I received this award out of my mind soon. Ultimately, that will happen.”

Two South Korean women read “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang in a local bookstore in Seoul on May 16, 2016. (Yonhap)