The Man
Booker International Prize is given to a book in English translation, with a
£50,000 prize for the winning title, to be shared equally between author and
translator. Its aim is to encourage more publishing and reading of quality
works in translation.
Today the
2016 winner was announced: The Vegetarian written by Han Kang, a South
Korean, and translated by Deborah Smith.
Yeong-hye
and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate
ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The
acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a
more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by
grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost
unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision is a
shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more
bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts
of sexual sadism. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and
hospitalization. She unknowingly captivates her sister's husband, a video
artist. She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks,
while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her
fleshly prison and becoming - impossibly, ecstatically - a tree. The
Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about
shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one
imprisoned body to another (https://www.amazon.ca/Vegetarian-Novel-Han-Kang-ebook/dp/B00R1BRKDG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463433401&sr=8-1&keywords=the+vegetarian).
For more
information about the award, the novel and the novelist and translator, go to http://themanbookerprize.com/international/news/vegetarian-wins-man-booker-international-prize-2016. (I outlined the six finalists in my April 14th
blog entry: http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2016/04/man-booker-international-prize-shortlist.html).
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