Human Acts
Han Kang
The 1980 Gwangju uprising in South Korea is told through the voices of people who lived through it, in a harrowing novel by the same author with graphic violence.
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Books like The Vegetarian
The Vegetarian, by Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang, follows a South Korean woman whose decision to stop eating meat unsettles her family and her marriage. These seven books share its spare, unsettling style or its focus on women and society.
Books to read next
Greek Lessons
Han Kang
In a Seoul classroom, a silent woman learning ancient Greek and her teacher, who is going blind, grow close, in a quiet, lyrical novel by the same author.
Convenience Store Woman
Sayaka Murata
A woman who has worked at a Tokyo convenience store for 18 years is pressed by family and friends to live differently, in a short, darkly funny novel.
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Cho Nam-joo
An ordinary Seoul woman's life from childhood to motherhood is told through the sexism she meets at every stage, in a plain, case-file style.
The Memory Police
Yoko Ogawa
People on a nameless island forget each thing that disappears, and a novelist shields a friend the authorities want, in a quiet, chilling novel.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ottessa Moshfegh
A numb young woman in 2000 New York tries to sleep through a year with prescription drugs, in a darkly comic novel that touches on depression and substance use.
Breasts and Eggs
Mieko Kawakami
A writer in Tokyo hosts her sister and niece, and years later considers having a child alone, in a frank novel about women and their bodies.
How to choose
The Vegetarian is unsettling and includes violence in the family, sexual coercion, self-harm and disordered eating, so check the content notes if those are hard for you. For more Han Kang, Human Acts depicts the violence of a real 1980 massacre, and Greek Lessons is the quietest of her books here. For women who don't fit what society expects, try Convenience Store Woman, short and darkly funny, or Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, which reads like a case file. The Memory Police is eerie and hushed. My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a dark comedy that touches on depression and drug use, and Breasts and Eggs is frank about bodies and motherhood. Six of the seven are translations.
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