Greek Lessons: From the International Booker Prize-winning author of The Vegetarian

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Greek Lessons is the story of the unlikely bond between this pair and a tender love letter to human intimacy and connection—a novel to awaken the senses, one that vividly conjures the essence of what it means to be alive.

Han Kang: ‘That will be a problem when I die – I won’t be Han Kang: ‘That will be a problem when I die – I won’t be

She was born in Gwangju and at the age of 10, moved to Suyuri (of which she speaks affectionately in her novel Greek Lessons) in Seoul.

Though the two books have shared concerns, the sensual, botanical and earthbound register of The Vegetarian contrasts with Greek Lessons as summer does winter: the latter is a crystalline, cerebral work of an icier temperature.

Greek Lessons - Wikipedia Greek Lessons - Wikipedia

Han has been chosen to win the Malaparte Prize 2017 with the Italian translation of Human Acts, " Atti Umani" from Adelphi Edizioni, 2017 in Italy on 1 October 2017. For Han, writing is something of a pure impulse – one that exists separate to awards and audiences whom, she says, she never thinks of when working, anyway. This story follows a young woman who signs up for Ancient Greek Language lessons after losing her voice. A young, recently mute woman begins taking a class in Ancient Greek language in an effort to reclaim language in some way. Silence, shy hesitation and reactions of muted laughter slowly heat the air inside the classroom, and slowly cool it.A space without a hint of sin or suffering, and which for that reason I’d felt was almost pagan: the church of St Stephan. Han won the 25th Korean Novel Award with her novella Baby Buddha in 1999, the 2000 Today's Young Artist Award, the 2005 Yi-Sang Literary Award with Mongolian Mark, and the 2010 Dong-ni Literary Award with Breath Fighting. At times, when the woman is flooded with strong emotions, she feels as though language—creaturely and possibly predatory—is drawing nearer: “Words and sounds track her like ghosts, at a remove from her body, but near enough to be within ear- and eyeshot. The language that had pricked and confined her like clothing made from a thousand needles abruptly disappeared. Almost from the start the reader suspects that the woman’s silence represents a more profound alienation from meaning or, perhaps, a sense of being overwhelmed that might be traced back to her childhood, when the letters and phonemes that fascinated her simultaneously threatened to “thrust their way into her sleep like skewers”.