Light and Thread by Han Kang review a tantalising book of reflections

"The Vegetarian, about a woman whose progressive rejection of social norms results in her trying to become a plant, was, we learn, inspired by questions such as, To what depths can we reject violence? A book for Han is complete when I reach the end of these questions—which is not the same as when I find answers to them."

"It's no surprise that Han, haunted by a youthful encounter with a photo book commemorating the victims of the Gwangju massacre, was forced to abandon a radiant, life-affirming novel she had been working on and write Human Acts instead."

"As for Greek Lessons—the story of a mute woman and a man losing his sight, and the most opaque of her novels—the question Han wrestles with tempers dread with hope. Could it be that by regarding the softest aspects of humanity, by caressing the irrefutable warmth that resides there, we can go on living after all in this brief, violent world?"

Han Kang won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature for her intense poetic prose confronting historical traumas and human fragility. Her work examines both external events, such as the 1980 Gwangju massacre in Human Acts, and internal psychological experiences, as seen in The Vegetarian's portrait of social rejection. Han deliberately leaves interpretive gaps in her writing for readers to complete. Her collection Light and Thread, organized into sections on writing, poetry, and gardening, includes her Nobel lecture revealing that The Vegetarian explores depths of rejecting violence, while Human Acts emerged from her haunting encounter with a Gwangju massacre photo book. Greek Lessons, her most opaque novel, questions whether recognizing humanity's softest aspects enables survival in a violent world. Writing functions as psychic necessity for Han, sometimes moving her to tears.

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