Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
The Vegetarian
Han Kang
WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
’Sensual, provocative and violent...an extraordinary experience’ - Guardian
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people - dutiful wife and mild-mannered office worker. One day, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares, Yeong-hye decides to become a vegetarian. But in South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, it is a shocking act of subversion. Yeong-hye’s passive rebellion rapidly manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, from sexual sadism to attempted suicide, and in increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, as all the while she spirals further into her fantasies... Disturbing and beautiful by turns, The Vegetarian is a revelatory novel about modern day South Korea; a tale of shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others.
Latest Releases
2023 in Highlights
Essays & Memoir|The Online Edition
Listlessness
Christy Edwall
‘The listless mind is one which defers rather than tries to bring about closure. There is always one more tab to open.’ Christy Edwall on listlessness in twenty-first century fiction.
Fiction|Issue 162
Biography of X
Catherine Lacey
‘Grief has a warring logic; it always wants something impossible, something worse and something better.’ An extract from Biography of X by Catherine Lacey.
Fiction|The Online Edition
I Won’t Let You Go
Hiromi Kawakami
Translated by Allison Markin Powell
‘I have no idea why I felt so drawn to the mermaid, but the pull was irresistible.’ Fiction by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell.
Essays & Memoir|Issue 161
Speaking Brother
Will Harris
‘I don’t have a brother; I’m an only child. But a few years ago I started writing poems in which a brother appears.’ Will Harris on Brother Poem
In Conversation|The Online Edition
In Conversation
Leslie Jamison & Margo Jefferson
‘The self is the work of art. Criticism puts that self in the service of other art.’ The authors discuss the multiplicity of the self, the idea of necessity, and how to work with what you lack.
Writing by Granta Books Authors
Skromnost
Janet Malcolm
‘The Czech word skromnost means “modesty”, but it also carries a mild sense of forelock-tugging humbleness, of knowing one’s place.’
An excerpt from Janet Malcolm’s final book.
I Am the Word for God and Boy
Aidan Cottrell-Boyce
‘We are sitting in a cafe, on planet Earth, on the night before our wedding day.’
Fiction by Aidan Cottrell-Boyce.
In Conversation
Tom Bullough & Ben Rawlence
‘People may not want realism but it’s still our job to try and supply it in compelling and truthful ways.’
Tom Bullough and Ben Rawlence on writing into the climate crisis.
The Intoxicated Years
Mariana Enríquez
‘They cried as if they weren’t to blame for any of it. We hated innocent people.’
Careless
Hiroko Oyamada
‘As I lay on the mattress, the white toe pads of the gecko floated up before me, against the vastness of the blue-black night. Rather than a presence, it seemed to me more like a trace, a barely discernible odour that flooded in on the air.’
Bestsellers
News, Prizes & Events
I’m A Fan Wins a British Book Award
I'm A Fan by Sheena Patel wins the Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards.
Birnam Wood Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton is a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
Heritage Aesthetics Wins the RSL Ondaatje Prize
Anthony Anaxagorou has won the RSL Ondaatje Prize for his collection Heritage Aesthetics. The prize is awarded to an outstanding work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry that best evokes the spirit of a place.
