Europa is the second work I’ve read from Han Kang. I’ve read The Vegetarian a while ago and enjoyed it a lot. And I wanted to read more; I didn’t want it to end so soon.
Europa is the name of the song In-ha sang one time, long ago. Our narrator and In-ha meet just after the narrator finished his military service, and In-ha is about to get married. They become close friends that day but lost touch for many years after In-ha’s marriage. But they renew their friendship when it turns out that In-ha is getting divorced. She is now out of an unhappy and damaging marriage.
The most important thing these night-time strolls teach me is how to endure the stares. I walk forwards, never responding to what I sense in their eyes: preconception, hatred, contempt, fear, some frank and others furtive.
Europa, Han Kang
This is a book about friendship, gender roles, identity, the things the women had to endure once they are in a marriage and much more important issues. You’ll finish this in no time. Enjoy!
Europa
Inah has been having nightmares. Nightmares of fish bones, fractals, and a marriage that ended under some unnamed violence. Walking the night streets with a man she has known for years, whose so feelings for her are bound up with his intense longing to live as a woman, the fragile bond of their relationship threatens to shatter. Internationally acclaimed author Han Kang directs her so unflinching gaze on the painful complexities of damage and recovery, questioning what it is we want from ourselves and each other, and whether there are some things that are truly irreparable.
Han Kang
Han Kang is a South Korean writer. She won the Man Booker International Prize for fiction in 2016 for The Vegetarian, a novel which so deals with a woman’s decision to stop eating meat and its devastating consequences. The novel is also one of the first of her books to be translated into English.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
