Where to Start Reading Han Kang
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With the release of acclaimed author Hang Kang’s latest novel just a few days away, we’re braving the January cold by curling up with her incredible books. Awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature for “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” Kang has a knack for confronting difficult subjects like political violence, trauma, death and grief with an empathetic eye. If you’re looking for the best place to get to know her novels, we’ve got you covered.
{{ product: 9780593595459 }}Kang’s latest follows one woman, determined to save her ailing friend’s beloved pet, visited by apparitions while on an arduous journey through a snowstorm. Balancing history with hauntingly beautiful prose, this newest entry from the award-winner perfectly shows the transformative power of friendship and memory.
The novel that won her the 2023 International Booker Prize, this is a dark and visceral story of human psychology, violence and transformation. Upon winning, Kang shared with the Booker committee, “When I write fiction, I put a lot of emphasis on the senses . . . I infuse these sensations into my sentences like an electric current.”
Powerful, compelling and unnerving, this is a staggering take on the Gwangju Uprising. After a young student is killed amid a violent revolt, Han Kang takes readers through the calamitous effects on the community and reverberations on the world today.
How do we live through loss? Han Kang poses this question through the poignant story of the relationship between a woman losing her ability to speak and a professor’s declining eyesight. This is a breathtaking account of intimacy and human connection that you won’t soon forget.
At just 160 pages, The White Book is a remarkable meditation on life, death, loss and memory. Han Kang tells a breathtaking story of grief through a study of color and its absence.