Han Kang’s “Vegetarian” on long-list for Man Booker International Prize

HanKangNearly two years after Kyung-Sook Shin’s Please Look After Mom became the first book by a Korean author to win the Man Asian Literary Prize for her novel Please Look After MomKorean author Han Kang has taken the first step towards a possible similar triumph by being longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

Vegetarian is a harrowing (originally seraliized in three sections and reviewed on KTLIT here) story of a woman’s descent towards death, which begins with her apparently simple decision to cease eating meat.

The Man Booker International Prize is given in partnership with the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and is awarded annually to one work of translated fiction. Unusually,  £50,000 prize wis split between the author of the winning book and the book’s translator (In the case of Vegetarian, Deborah Smith, who did an excellent job, obviously). The judging committee considered 155 books and chose 13 works for the longlist.

On April 14th, the committee will announce it’s shortlist, and KTLIT fervently hopes that Vegetarian will not only make it to that round, but win the prize.

The competition certainly will be fierce, as the longlist is full of great works:

Author (nationality) Translator Title (imprint)

Obviously some very heavy-hitters there, making the list extremely prestigious.