Author Han Kang, winner of the International Booker Prize 2016 for "The Vegetarian," and translator Deborah Smith / Courtesy of Booker Prize Foundation

Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian” has been chosen as readers’ favorite among International Booker Prize winning titles, underscoring the enduring global resonance of the unsettling novel a decade after its win.

To mark the 10th anniversary of the prize in its current format, organizers invited readers tovoteonline between February and April on the 10 winning titles from 2016 to 2025. Nearly 10,000 people took part, with almost one-third selecting “The Vegetarian” as their favorite, the prize committee announced Monday, U.K. time.

First published in Korean in 2007 and translated into English by Deborah Smith in 2015, “The Vegetarian” became Han’s first book to reach English-speaking readers and went on to clinch the International Booker (then the Man Booker International Prize) the following year.

The novel follows Yeong-hye, a seemingly ordinary woman who refuses to eat meat and steadily “naturalizes” herself in a disturbing rebellion against patriarchal and human-centered violence. At the time, judges praised it as “concise yet elaborate, and at the same time shocking.”

Readers who backed the book in the anniversary poll highlighted its lasting impact.

One reader said discovering the novel in college “truly shaped the kind of fiction I seek right now,” according the prize's website.

In a previously published interview released by the prize to celebrate the vote, Han recalled writing “The Vegetarian” between 2003 and 2005, during what she described as a difficult period.

“I never imagined that it would one day find so many readers,” Han said. “At the time, I was not sure if I would be able to finish the novel, or even survive as a writer.” She added that winning the prize in 2016, more than a decade ago, felt “rather strange (in a good way),” and credited the prize with helping her work reach “a wider readership in different cultures.”

Since Han’s 2016 win, a string of Korean titles have been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, including her “The White Book” (2018), Bora Chung’s “Cursed Bunny” (2022), Cheong Myeong-kwan’s “Whale” (2023) and Hwang Sok-yong’s “Mater 2-10” (2024).

Source: Korea Times News