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Han Kang

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Han Kang


Born
in Gwangju, Korea, Republic of
November 27, 1970

Website

Genre
Fiction


Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Han Kang ( 한강) was born in 1970 in South Korea. She is the author of The Vegetarian, winner of the International Booker Prize, as well as Human Acts, The White Book, Greek Lessons, and We Do Not Part. In 2024, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life." ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 3.75 · 621,711 ratings · 94,644 reviews · 61 distinct works • Similar authors
The Vegetarian
3.65 avg rating — 409,623 ratings — published 2007 — 184 editions
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Human Acts
4.27 avg rating — 80,808 ratings — published 2014 — 93 editions
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Greek Lessons
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3.60 avg rating — 50,345 ratings — published 2011 — 8 editions
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The White Book
3.81 avg rating — 38,279 ratings — published 2016 — 5 editions
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We Do Not Part
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3.86 avg rating — 33,547 ratings — published 2021 — 11 editions
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Convalescenza
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3.82 avg rating — 2,600 ratings — published 2013 — 4 editions
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Deine kalten Hände
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3.84 avg rating — 2,227 ratings — published 2002 — 9 editions
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Light and Thread
4.23 avg rating — 1,514 ratings — published 2025 — 11 editions
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Guardé el anochecer en el c...
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3.73 avg rating — 930 ratings — published 2013 — 10 editions
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Europa (Yeoyu, #3)
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3.84 avg rating — 422 ratings
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More books by Han Kang…

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Quotes by Han Kang  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure. She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm. Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging, all her successes had depended on it, and she would have gone on like that indefinitely. She didn't understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived.”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian
tags: endurance, survival, trauma
534 likes
Like

“Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel? Is the experience of cruelty the only thing we share as a species? Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves the single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, slaughtered - is this the essential of humankind, one which history has confirmed as inevitable?”
― Han Kang, Human Acts
tags: human-acts
317 likes
Like

“After you died I could not hold a funeral,
And so my life became a funeral.”
― Han Kang, Human Acts
291 likes
Like

Polls

295344
The best winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

 
  34 votes, 6.3%

Han Kang (2024)
 
  34 votes, 6.3%

Bob Dylan (2016)
 
  19 votes, 3.5%

Toni Morrison (1993)
 
  16 votes, 3.0%

Annie Ernaux (2022)
 
  16 votes, 3.0%

 
  15 votes, 2.8%

Jon Fosse (2023)
 
  15 votes, 2.8%

 
  15 votes, 2.8%

 
  14 votes, 2.6%

 
  13 votes, 2.4%

 
  12 votes, 2.2%

Albert Camus (1957)
 
  12 votes, 2.2%

 
  11 votes, 2.0%

 
  11 votes, 2.0%

Orhan Pamuk (2006)
 
  11 votes, 2.0%

 
  11 votes, 2.0%

 
  9 votes, 1.7%

 
  9 votes, 1.7%

 
  9 votes, 1.7%

 
  7 votes, 1.3%

W.B. Yeats (1923)
 
  7 votes, 1.3%

 
  7 votes, 1.3%

 
  7 votes, 1.3%

Hermann Hesse (1946)
 
  7 votes, 1.3%

Seamus Heaney (1995)
 
  7 votes, 1.3%

Louise Glück (2020)
 
  7 votes, 1.3%

Henri Bergson (1927)
 
  6 votes, 1.1%

T.S. Eliot (1948)
 
  6 votes, 1.1%

 
  6 votes, 1.1%

 
  6 votes, 1.1%

 
  5 votes, 0.9%

 
  5 votes, 0.9%

 
  5 votes, 0.9%

 
  5 votes, 0.9%

 
  5 votes, 0.9%

 
  4 votes, 0.7%

 
  4 votes, 0.7%

 
  4 votes, 0.7%

 
  4 votes, 0.7%

Sigrid Undset (1928)
 
  4 votes, 0.7%

 
  4 votes, 0.7%

 
  4 votes, 0.7%

Gao Xingjian (2000)
 
  4 votes, 0.7%

Herta Müller (2009)
 
  4 votes, 0.7%

 
  4 votes, 0.7%

Peter Handke (2019)
 
  4 votes, 0.7%

 
  3 votes, 0.6%

 
  3 votes, 0.6%

 
  3 votes, 0.6%

Patrick White (1973)
 
  3 votes, 0.6%

Saul Bellow (1976)
 
  3 votes, 0.6%

 
  3 votes, 0.6%

 
  3 votes, 0.6%

 
  3 votes, 0.6%

Günter Grass (1999)
 
  3 votes, 0.6%

Doris Lessing (2007)
 
  3 votes, 0.6%

Alice Munro (2013)
 
  3 votes, 0.6%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

Pearl S. Buck (1938)
 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

Ivo Andrić (1961)
 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

Pablo Neruda (1971)
 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

Claude Simon (1985)
 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

 
  2 votes, 0.4%

Paul Heyse (1910)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

André Gide (1947)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

Nelly Sachs (1966)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

Elias Canetti (1981)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

Wole Soyinka (1986)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

Octavio Paz (1990)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

Derek Walcott (1992)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

V.S. Naipaul (2001)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

Imre Kertész (2002)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

J.M. Coetzee (2003)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  1 vote, 0.2%

Mo Yan (2012)
 
  1 vote, 0.2%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

S.Y. Agnon (1966)
 
  0 votes, 0.0%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

Dario Fo (1997)
 
  0 votes, 0.0%

Harold Pinter (2005)
 
  0 votes, 0.0%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

542 total votes
More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

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100+ Books in 2026: Aubrey - 2016 - 100+ 2 24 Feb 26, 2016 07:47PM  
500 Great Books B...: Jean's YoRWoC 2016 6 44 Mar 17, 2016 03:36AM  


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