The Good Wife? Sibling Species in Han Kang's The Vegetarian

Winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (translated into English by Deborah Smith in 2015) troubles postcolonial intersections of sex, contagion and culinary habits by following the vegan transition of a woman named Yeong-hye in South Korea. In this article, I argue that Yeong-hye’s posthumanist performance of vegan praxis is motivated not by illogical illness, but rather by unutterable trauma and the struggle for intersectional power. Specifically, I focus on exchanges between ‘sibling species’, considering how transgressive animal, corporeal and sexual imagery is used to reimagine both ethical positions and interpersonal relationships.