Vegetarian (Kang) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—November 27, 1970
• Where—Kwangju, South Korea
• Education—Yonsei University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Seoul


Han Kang is a South Korean poet, novelist, and short story writer. The daughter of novelist Han Seung-won, she was born in Kwangju but moved, at the age of 10, to Seoul. She studied Korean literature at Yonsei University and participated in the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the U.S.

Han published her first poems in 1993. Her first novel, Black Year, a mystery about a missing woman, was released in 1998. Around that time, she was introduced to a line from the Korean poet Yi Sang: "I believe that humans should be plants," a line which she interpreted as a defensece against the violence of the colonial period.

The line became an inspiration for "The Fruit of My Woman," Han's short story about a woman who actually turns into a plant. The woman and her husband had had a distant relationship, but once she becomes a plant he puts her in a pot and tends to her lovingly. Han said she wanted to deepen the story, which eventually became The Vegetarian, published in 2007 (English translation, 2015).

(Apparently, she wrote two of the three sections of The Vegetarian by hand: repetitive keyboard strokes had damaged her wrist.)

 Han's other Korean novels include, Baby Buddha (a novella, 1999), Your Cold Hand (2002), Breath Fighting (2010), and Greek Lessons (2011).

Baby Buddha and The Vegetarian have been made into films. The latter was one of 14 films, out of 1,000 submissions, to be part of the North American Film Fest's "World Narrative Competition."

Awards
1995 - Hankook Ilbo Excellent Writer's Award for Baby Buddha
1999 - Korean Novel Award
2000 - Today's Young Artist Award (Literature), Ministry of Culture and Tourism
2005 - Yi Sang Literary Award Grand Prize for Mongolian Mark
2010 - Dong-ni Literary Award for Breath Fighting
2014 - Manhae Literary Award
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/9/2016.)