Greek Lessons - Han Kang, Deborah Smith & e. yaewon
By Han Kang, Deborah Smith & e. yaewon
Release Date: 2023-04-18
Genre: Fiction & Literature
FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
â[Han Kangâs] intense poetic prose . . . exposes the fragility of human life.ââThe Nobel Committee for Literature, in the citation for the Nobel Prize
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORSâ CHOICE âą A dazzling novel about the saving grace of language and human connection, from the âvisionaryâ (New York Times Book Review) author of the International Booker Prize winner The Vegetarian
âBoth a disquieting journey about the loss of sense and a return to the sensorium of touch and intimacy, Greek Lessons soars with sensuous and revelatory insight.ââCathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Time, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal
"Now and then, language would thrust its way into her sleep like a skewer through meat, startling her awake several times a night."
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.
Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguishâthe fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are the very things that draw them to each other. Slowly the two discover a profound sense of unityâtheir voices intersecting with startling beauty, as they move from darkness to light, from silence to breath and expression.
Greek Lessons is the story of the unlikely bond between this pair and a tender love letter to human intimacy and connectionâa novel to awaken the senses, one that vividly conjures the essence of what it means to be alive.
