Author Guide · Korean Literary Fiction
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In January 1980 Han Kang’s family moved from Gwangju to Seoul, when her father, the novelist Han Seung-won, became a full-time writer. Four months later the South Korean army killed hundreds of protesters in the city they had left, and the family that bought their old house lost a son. That boy became the centre of Human Acts (2014). Han had begun with poems in 1993, and by the time The Vegetarian won the International Booker Prize in 2016 she had been publishing in Korea for over twenty years. In 2024 she became the first South Korean writer and the first Asian woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. This guide covers her 6 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 6 key books · 2007–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Six Han Kang books are available in English: The Vegetarian (English 2015; Korean 2007), Human Acts (2016; 2014), The White Book (2017; 2016), Greek Lessons (2023; 2011), We Do Not Part (2025; 2021) and the essay collection Light and Thread (2026; 2025). She won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. Start with The Vegetarian, the short novel that won the 2016 International Booker Prize. Read on for how the books connect and which to read next.
Where to Start with Han Kang
If you want her best-known book
→ The Vegetarian (2007) — a woman who stops eating meat, seen by three people around her.
If you want the history behind the Nobel citation
→ Human Acts (2014) — the 1980 Gwangju Uprising.
If you want her most recent novel
→ We Do Not Part (2021) — the Jeju massacre, through two friends and a snowstorm.
If you want something short and quiet
→ The White Book (2016) — a list of white things and a sister who lived two hours.
6 Han Kang Books in English, in Order
The Vegetarian
Published in Korea in 2007 and in English in 2015 (Portobello Books, translated by Deborah Smith). After a violent dream, Yeong-hye, an ordinary Seoul housewife, stops eating meat; her husband, her family and then her brother-in-law react to the refusal with mounting force, while she becomes convinced she is turning into a plant. It is told in three parts, by her husband, her brother-in-law and her sister, never by her. It grew out of Han’s 1997 story “The Fruit of My Woman”, and its middle part, “Mongolian Mark”, won the Yi Sang Literary Award in 2005. It won the International Booker Prize in 2016, shared with Smith.
Human Acts
Published in Korea in 2014 and in English in 2016 (Portobello Books, translated by Deborah Smith). It begins with Dong-ho, a schoolboy helping to lay out the dead in a gymnasium during the Gwangju Uprising of May 1980, when the army killed hundreds of students and civilians, and follows the people around him over the following decades: a friend whose soul watches his own body, an editor, a prisoner, a factory worker, Dong-ho’s mother. It won the Manhae Literary Award in Korea in 2014.
The White Book
Published in Korea in 2016 as Huin (“White”) and in English in 2017 (Portobello Books, translated by Deborah Smith). A narrator staying in a foreign city writes short pieces on a list of white things — swaddling bands, salt, snow, a shroud — and on the older sister her mother gave birth to alone, who died two hours later, before the narrator was born. It was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2018.
Greek Lessons
Published in Korea in 2011 and in English in 2023 (Hogarth, translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won). A woman in Seoul who has lost the power of speech, after losing her mother and custody of her young son, takes classes in Ancient Greek. Her teacher, who grew up partly in Germany, is slowly going blind. The chapters alternate between the two of them as a fragile connection grows between them.
We Do Not Part
Published in Korea in 2021 and in English in 2025 (Hogarth, translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris). Kyungha, a writer, is asked by her friend Inseon, in hospital in Seoul after a woodworking accident, to travel to her house on Jeju Island in a snowstorm to save her pet bird. There she is drawn into the history of Inseon’s family and the Jeju massacre that began in 1948. The French translation won the Prix Médicis étranger in 2023, and the English edition won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in March 2026.
Light and Thread
Published in Korea in 2025 and in English in March 2026 (Hamish Hamilton, translated by Maya West, e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris), her first book since the Nobel Prize. It opens with her Nobel lecture of December 2024 and mixes essays, poems, diary entries and photographs, many about a small north-facing garden at her home that she grows with sunlight reflected from mirrors. The title comes from a poem she wrote at eight about a “gold thread” connecting hearts.
In What Order to Read Han Kang
None of Han Kang’s books continue from one another, so you can read them in any order. This page lists them in the order they appeared in English; the year shown with each book is the year it was first published in Korean. In Korean order they run: The Vegetarian (2007), Greek Lessons (2011), Human Acts (2014), The White Book (2016), We Do Not Part (2021) and Light and Thread (2025).
Human Acts and We Do Not Part are both about state massacres in Korea, so they read well one after the other. The White Book and Greek Lessons are short and quieter. Save Light and Thread for last: it is her own commentary on the novels.
A reading path
1. The Vegetarian (2007)
2. Human Acts (2014)
3. The White Book (2016)
4. We Do Not Part (2021)
5. Light and Thread (2025)
Other Han Kang Writing
Beyond the 6 key books: 9 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Shorter work in English
2
2 books · 2017–2019
- 2017Convalescencea single story in a bilingual Korean–English edition from ASIA Publishers, translated by Seung-hee Jeon
- 2019Europaa single story in Strangers Press’s Yeoyu series of Korean writing, translated by Deborah Smith
Books not yet in English
7
7 books · 1995–2013
- 1995Love in Yeosuher first story collection
- 1998Black Deerher first novel
- 2000The Fruit of My Womanstories, including the seed of The Vegetarian
- 2002Your Cold Handsa novel
- 2010The Wind Blows, Goa novel
- 2012Fire Salamanderstories
- 2013I Put the Evening in the Drawerher poetry collection
The years · 1970–2024
Quick facts about Han Kang
- Known for
- Short, physical novels about violence done to bodies, by families and by the state, and the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature.
- 1970
- Born in Gwangju
- 1980
- Moves to Seoul, four months before the Gwangju Uprising
- 1993
- Debut with five poems
- 2007
- The Vegetarian
- 2016
- International Booker Prize
- 2024
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- Born
- 27 November 1970, Gwangju, South Korea
- Family
- Daughter of the novelist Han Seung-won; both her brothers also write
- Education
- Korean literature, Yonsei University (1993)
- English translators
- Deborah Smith, e. yaewon, Paige Aniyah Morris, Maya West
- Prizes
- Yi Sang Literary Award (2005), International Booker Prize (2016), Prix Médicis étranger (2023), Nobel Prize in Literature (2024)
- Future Library
- Her manuscript Dear Son, My Beloved (2019) stays unread in Oslo until 2114
The red mark is 2007: The Vegetarian, the novel that brought her to readers outside Korea.
How Han Kang Writes: The Body First
Han Kang started as a poet, and her novels are short and built from small units: numbered fragments in The White Book, alternating voices in Greek Lessons, chapters in Human Acts that each hand the story to a new person and sometimes speak to them as “you”. She has said that when she writes fiction she puts “a lot of emphasis on the senses”, and her scenes are physical: hunger, blood, cold, wounds, the weight of a body on a gymnasium floor.
Her subject is what people do to one another’s bodies. In The Vegetarian it happens inside a family: a husband, a father and a brother-in-law each try to force Yeong-hye back into the life they expect. In Human Acts and We Do Not Part the violence is the state’s, at Gwangju in 1980 and on Jeju from 1948. The Nobel committee cited her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
She rarely tells the reader what to think. Her central characters are often silent — Yeong-hye never narrates her own story, the woman in Greek Lessons cannot speak — and others try to read them. For writers who work in the same register, see Authors like Han Kang.
Watch
Han Kang on how she became a writer
Recorded in Stockholm on 6 December 2024, Han talks about her family, the books she read as a child, her daily writing routine and how writing has changed her.
Frequently asked questions about Han Kang’s books
How many books has Han Kang written?
About twenty in Korean since 1993, including eight novels, three story collections, a poetry collection, essays and children’s books. Six are available in English as full books, all on this page; two single stories, Convalescence and Europa, have also appeared as short English editions.
What are Han Kang’s books in order?
In order of English publication: The Vegetarian (English 2015; Korean 2007), Human Acts (2016; 2014), The White Book (2017; 2016), Greek Lessons (2023; 2011), We Do Not Part (2025; 2021) and Light and Thread (2026; 2025).
How many Han Kang books are available in English?
Six: The Vegetarian (2015), Human Acts (2016), The White Book (2017), Greek Lessons (2023), We Do Not Part (2025) and Light and Thread (2026). Her earlier Korean novels and story collections, from Black Deer (1998) to The Wind Blows, Go (2010), have not yet been translated.
Where should I start with Han Kang?
With The Vegetarian. It is short, in three parts, and shows her way of writing clearly. If you are reading her because of the Nobel citation about historical trauma, start with Human Acts, about the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, instead.
What is Han Kang’s most famous book?
The Vegetarian (Korean 2007; English 2015). It won the International Booker Prize in 2016, shared with her translator Deborah Smith, and was included in The New York Times’s 2024 list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.
Did Han Kang win the Nobel Prize?
Yes. She won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”, the first South Korean writer and the first Asian woman to receive it. She gave her Nobel lecture, “Light and Thread”, in Stockholm on 7 December 2024.
Is Human Acts based on a true story?
It is based on the Gwangju Uprising of May 1980, when the South Korean army killed hundreds of protesters in Han’s home city. Her family had moved to Seoul four months earlier. The central character, Dong-ho, is drawn from a fifteen-year-old middle-school student killed in the uprising, the younger son of the family who had bought the Hans’ house.
Was The Vegetarian banned in South Korea?
Not nationally. In 2023, after a conservative group recommended disposing of sex-related books, a memo from the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education led about 2,490 school libraries in the province to remove 2,528 books, The Vegetarian among them. The book was never officially designated harmful to young people, and the removals were criticised by teachers and questioned by lawmakers after the Nobel announcement in October 2024.
Is the English translation of The Vegetarian accurate?
It has been debated. Deborah Smith, who had taught herself Korean, made it as her first book translation. In 2017 Korean critics pointed out mistranslations and passages she had made more emphatic or lyrical than the original. Han Kang has said she read and supports the translation, and Smith has said she aimed to be faithful to the spirit of the text.
Has The Vegetarian been made into a film?
Yes. Vegetarian (2009), written and directed by Lim Woo-seong, is a Korean film adaptation. Lim also filmed her story “Baby Buddha” as Scars (2011).
Is Han Kang still alive, and what is her newest book?
Yes. She was born in Gwangju on 27 November 1970 and lives in Seoul. Her newest book in English is Light and Thread (March 2026), which opens with her Nobel lecture. In 2019 she gave a manuscript, Dear Son, My Beloved, to the Future Library in Oslo; it will not be read until 2114.
Footnotes
- Han Kang — Wikipedia
- Han Kang — Nobel lecture, 2024
- Light and Thread — Penguin UK
- Han Kang interview — The Booker Prizes
- Han Kang wins National Book Critics Circle Award — The Korea Times, 2026
- Censorship of Nobel winner Han Kang’s book stirs debate — Asia News Network, 2024
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Can the past help the present? Can the dead save the living?”
— Han Kang, Nobel lecture “Light and Thread” (2024)
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