
The Vegetarian
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $20.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Janet Song
-
Stephen Park
-
By:
-
Han Kang
About this listen
An irresistibly weird and sensuous story of betrayals, transformations and social taboos.
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plantlike' existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares.
In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and hospitalisation. She unknowingly captivates her sister's husband, a video artist. She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming - impossibly, ecstatically - a tree.
Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern-day South Korea but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.
©2007 Han Kang. English translation copyright © Deborah Smith 2015 (P)2016 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Human Acts
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, Deborah Smith
- Narrated by: Sandra Oh, Deborah Smith - introduction, Greta Jung, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.
-
-
Tedious
- By Kindle Customer on 02-16-17
By: Han Kang, and others
-
Greek Lessons
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, Deborah Smith - translator, Emily Yae Won - translator
- Narrated by: Greta Jung, Earl T. Kim
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. Soon the two discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence.
-
-
Deeply rewarding
- By Pedro on 04-07-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
The White Book
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, Deborah Smith
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim
- Length: 1 hr and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While on a writer’s residency, a nameless narrator focuses on the color white to creatively channel her inner pain. Through lyrical, interconnected stories, she grapples with the tragedy that has haunted her family, attempting to make sense of her older sister’s death using the color white. From trying to imagine her mother’s first time producing breast milk to watching the snow fall and meditating on the impermanence of life, she weaves a poignant, heartfelt story of the omnipresence of grief and the ways we perceive the world around us.
-
-
Interesting Read
- By Telly on 02-23-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
Lapvona
- A Novel
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, believes his mother died giving birth to him. One of Marek’s few consolations is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby. For some people, Ina’s ability to receive transmissions of sacred knowledge from the natural world is a godsend. For others, Ina’s home in the woods is a godless place.
-
-
uncomfortable
- By Stetson on 07-04-22
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
-
We Spread
- By: Iain Reid
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made, unbeknownst to her, for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many “incidents”.
-
-
when your mind becomes faulty....
- By Barbara S on 10-31-22
By: Iain Reid
-
Pure Colour
- A Novel
- By: Sheila Heti
- Narrated by: Sheila Heti
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this first draft of the world, a woman named Mira leaves home to study. There, she meets Annie, whose tremendous power opens Mira’s chest like a portal—to what, she doesn’t know. When Mira is older, her beloved father dies, and his spirit passes into her.
-
-
Nothing else like it
- By Teri Kline on 03-20-22
By: Sheila Heti
-
Human Acts
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, Deborah Smith
- Narrated by: Sandra Oh, Deborah Smith - introduction, Greta Jung, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.
-
-
Tedious
- By Kindle Customer on 02-16-17
By: Han Kang, and others
-
Greek Lessons
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, Deborah Smith - translator, Emily Yae Won - translator
- Narrated by: Greta Jung, Earl T. Kim
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. Soon the two discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence.
-
-
Deeply rewarding
- By Pedro on 04-07-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
The White Book
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, Deborah Smith
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim
- Length: 1 hr and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While on a writer’s residency, a nameless narrator focuses on the color white to creatively channel her inner pain. Through lyrical, interconnected stories, she grapples with the tragedy that has haunted her family, attempting to make sense of her older sister’s death using the color white. From trying to imagine her mother’s first time producing breast milk to watching the snow fall and meditating on the impermanence of life, she weaves a poignant, heartfelt story of the omnipresence of grief and the ways we perceive the world around us.
-
-
Interesting Read
- By Telly on 02-23-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
Lapvona
- A Novel
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, believes his mother died giving birth to him. One of Marek’s few consolations is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby. For some people, Ina’s ability to receive transmissions of sacred knowledge from the natural world is a godsend. For others, Ina’s home in the woods is a godless place.
-
-
uncomfortable
- By Stetson on 07-04-22
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
-
We Spread
- By: Iain Reid
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made, unbeknownst to her, for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many “incidents”.
-
-
when your mind becomes faulty....
- By Barbara S on 10-31-22
By: Iain Reid
-
Pure Colour
- A Novel
- By: Sheila Heti
- Narrated by: Sheila Heti
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this first draft of the world, a woman named Mira leaves home to study. There, she meets Annie, whose tremendous power opens Mira’s chest like a portal—to what, she doesn’t know. When Mira is older, her beloved father dies, and his spirit passes into her.
-
-
Nothing else like it
- By Teri Kline on 03-20-22
By: Sheila Heti
-
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
- A Novel
- By: Cho Nam-Joo, Jamie Chang - translator
- Narrated by: Kathleen Choe
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A 30-something-year-old “millennial everywoman”, she has recently left her white-collar desk job - in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time - as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung impersonates the voices of other women - alive and even dead, both known and unknown to her.
-
-
This is not a novel.
- By Anonymous User on 02-17-21
By: Cho Nam-Joo, and others
-
A Certain Hunger
- By: Chelsea G. Summers
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eat Pray Love meets American Psycho in a seductive and sinister debut literary thriller. Food critic Dorothy Daniels indulges in her homicidal urges by murdering her lovers and devouring their organs in this intense, visceral, and lushly told tale of food, sex, power, and the pursuit of a very particular taste set between New York and Italy. Please Note: A Certain Hunger contains adult language and depictions of violence. Discretion is advised.
-
-
Ugh.
- By Kimberly on 02-03-20
-
Tender Is the Flesh
- By: Agustina Bazterrica
- Narrated by: Joseph Balderrama
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans - though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the "Transition". Now, eating human meat - "special meat" - is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.
-
-
Uhhhhhhh....
- By Josh E. on 12-05-20
-
Black Tide
- By: KC Jones
- Narrated by: John Pirhalla, Sophie Amoss
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mike and Beth didn't know each other existed before the night of the meteor shower. A melancholy film producer and a house sitter barely scraping by—chance made them neighbors, a bottle of champagne brought them together, and a shared need for human connection sparked something more. After a drunken and desperate one-night stand, the two strangers awake to discover a surprise astronomical event has left widespread destruction in its wake. But the cosmic lightshow was only part of something much bigger, and far more terrifying.
-
-
couldn't finish it
- By joseph rusyn on 07-06-22
By: KC Jones
-
Never Let Me Go
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.
-
-
Be patient; it will pay off
- By Kc on 05-23-05
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
Please Look After Mom
- By: Kyung-Sook Shin, Chi-Young Kim - translator
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Samantha Quan, Janet Song, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A million-plus-copy best seller in Korea - a magnificent English-language debut poised to become an international sensation - this is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway. Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love.
-
-
A Life, Deconstructed.
- By Amanda on 12-10-11
By: Kyung-Sook Shin, and others
-
The Only Good Indians
- By: Stephen Graham Jones
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From New York Times best-selling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American-Indian experience. Fans of Jordan Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American-Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a vengeful way.
-
-
this is the best book I've listened to maybe ever
- By Anthony on 07-15-20
-
Earthlings
- A Novel
- By: Sayaka Murata
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth.
-
-
Intriguing but disturbing
- By C. Parham on 01-01-21
By: Sayaka Murata
-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate; she works an easy job at a hip art gallery and lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
-
-
I love it...
- By Claudia Gallegos on 07-12-18
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
-
Cutting for Stone
- A Novel
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 23 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.
-
-
An Epic Medical Novel
- By Audiophile on 07-11-09
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Boy Parts
- By: Eliza Clark
- Narrated by: Eliza Clark
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina's relationship with her obsessive best friend and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention....
-
-
A modern American psycho but British
- By sofia on 09-23-21
By: Eliza Clark
-
Nightbitch
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Yoder
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.
-
-
If you don’t get it just say so
- By Stephanie Rzonca on 02-19-22
By: Rachel Yoder