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

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Han Kang ( Korean: 한강; born November 27, 1970) is a South Korean writer. [1] [2] She won the Man Booker International Prize for fiction in 2016 for The Vegetarian, a novel about a woman's descent into mental illness and neglect from her family. [3] The novel is also one of the first of her books to be translated into English. [4] Life [ edit ] Both a disquieting journey about the loss of sense and a return to the sensorium of touch and intimacy, Greek Lessons soars with sensuous and revelatory insight.”—Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings

Greek Lessons by Han Kang, Deborah Smith | Waterstones

Vegetarian" to Compete at Sundance 2010 @ HanCinema:: The Korean Movie and Drama Database". www.hancinema.net. Archived from the original on 13 January 2019 . Retrieved 13 January 2019. Here, the silent woman’s story is complemented by that of her teacher, who is gradually going blind and has returned to Seoul after a long period of living in Germany. Episodes from his past introduce a number of other characters whose stories remain only tangential, partially glimpsed, and which suggest estrangements, early deaths, physical and emotional displacement. But the teacher contrasts powerfully with his silent counterpart; as he loses his footing in the world – at one point, literally tumbling down a stairwell – he clings to and cherishes each moment of vision that remains to him, even as he begins to develop the resilience to accept its imminent departure. Greek Lessons (Translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won. Penguin Random House, 2023) ISBN 978-0593595275 [26] [27] [28] [29] Interview with Han Kang - The White Review". www.thewhitereview.org. Archived from the original on 2018-11-27 . Retrieved 2018-11-27.The Man Booker International Prize 2018 shortlist | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Archived from the original on 2019-08-23 . Retrieved 2019-08-23. Montgomery, Charles (15 November 2015). "Review of Han Kang's (한강) "The Vegetarian" ". www.ktlit.com. KTLit. Archived from the original on 28 June 2016 . Retrieved 7 April 2016. Han revealed in an interview at the Seoul ABC book club (7 November 7, 2015) that she wrote this work in longhand, because too much keyboarding had injured her wrist. a b c "Sunday meeting with Han Kang (한강) author of The Vegetarian (채식주의자), Korean Modern Literature in Translation, 11 June 2013". Archived from the original on 24 December 2013 . Retrieved 11 June 2013.

Greek Lessons by Han Kang | Goodreads

Chihaya, Sarah (4 May 2023). "A Novel in Which Language Hits Its Limit—And Keeps On Going". The Atlantic . Retrieved May 8, 2023.Soon the two discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son.For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence. Han has stated that she suffers periodically from migraines, and credits these migraines with "keeping her humble." [7] Work [ edit ]

‘Greek Lessons’ Reckons With the Power of Language - The Atlantic

If Han’s portrait of a woman’s withdrawal most readily calls to mind her 2015 English-language debut The Vegetarian, whose main character mounts a rebellion against her husband, family and society at large by refusing to eat meat, it also has a clear kinship with her later works Human Acts, which told the story of the Gwangju uprising of 1980, and The White Book, a fragmentary account of a writer walking through Warsaw reflecting on the death of her sister as a newborn. Han’s books often feature a meticulous, sustained attempt to describe inner states of being through glassily clear sentences in which sudden, unexpected images burst through. There is a sense of restraint and violence continually being held in balance; an insistence on indeterminacy, as strands of other narratives weave in and out of the story we believe we are being told. On Translating Human Acts by Han Kang - Asymptote". www.asymptotejournal.com . Retrieved 2023-06-23. At first, it seems impossible that these two characters, enclosed in their own dwindling worlds, might be able to reach each other. Yet, slowly, they begin to articulate themselves, using a basic grammar of glances, gestures, respectful proximity. Ultimately, when the man breaks his glasses and is rendered sightless, they discover a way to communicate through touch—the tracing of letters with fingertip on palm—that could be read as a gently affirming, even triumphant, reclamation of language. The fractured dialogue created by the book’s alternating sections is finally made whole. McAloon, Jonathan (2016-01-05). "Human Acts by Han Kang, review: 'an emotional triumph' ". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235 . Retrieved 2023-06-23.HAN Kang | The International Writing Program". iwp.uiowa.edu. Archived from the original on 2019-01-03 . Retrieved 2019-03-08. The man, too, must come to terms with the notion that he cannot bend language to his will. He has devoted his whole life to the acquisition and mastery of the written word, the spoken word, the signed word (in addition to teaching Greek, he also knows Korean, German, and German sign language); he clings to that mastery even as his ability to read any of these languages fades. Through a series of letters he writes, we learn that when he was young, he loved a deaf woman whom he lost forever when he asked her to learn to speak verbally—so that when his sight left him and she could no longer sign to him, they could still communicate. It’s only through becoming closer to the woman in his Greek class that he finally understands what he did not in that earlier relationship: that the cultivation of lingua franca demands care and the deepest respect, and is not to be taken for granted or imposed. Cheuk, Leland (April 20, 2023). " 'Greek Lessons' is an intimate, vulnerable portrayal of two lonely people". NPR. CORONA, MARCO DEL. "Premio Malaparte ad Han Kang". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Archived from the original on 2017-09-15. Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish—the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are the very things that draw them to each other. Slowly the two discover a profound sense of unity—their voices intersecting with startling beauty, asthey move from darkness to light, from silence to breath and expression.