This is an unusual little book, eclectic in both form and content. It opens with Han Kang\u2019s lecture delivered upon receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024, a text of remarkable beauty and sensitivity. The book then moves into reflections on her writing process: the importance of routine, what she does in the periods between books, and the quiet rhythms that shape her creative life. A large portion of the book is devoted to the north-facing garden of the house she recently bought, along with excerpts from her garden diary \u2014 blossoms appearing, plants emerging, flowers needing water. These passages are calm, meditative, and deeply poetic. While I admired the atmosphere they create, I am not sure I was entirely captivated by the garden sections themselves. Still, the Nobel lecture alone makes the book worthwhile, and it left me eager to read more translations of her work – or perhaps a new book altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“When I write, I use my body. I use all the sensory details of seeing, of listening, of smelling, of tasting, of experiencing tenderness and warmth and cold and pain, of noticing my heart racing and my body needing food and water, of walking and running, of feeling the wind and rain and snow on my skin, of holding hands. I try to infuse those vivid sensations that I feel as a mortal being with blood coursing through her body into my sentences. As if I am sending out an electric current. And when I sense this current being transmitted to the reader, I am astonished and moved. In these moments I experience again the thread of language that connects us, how my questions are relating with readers through that electric, living thing. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who have connected with me through that thread, as well as to all those who may come to do so.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is an unusual little book, eclectic in both form and content. It opens with Han Kang\u2019s lecture delivered upon receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024, a text of remarkable beauty and sensitivity. The book then moves into reflections on her writing process: the importance of routine, what she does in the periods […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[291,293],"tags":[94,28,27],"class_list":["post-21504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-2026","category-challenge-riquiqui-2026","tag-literature","tag-nature","tag-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dmytro-bukhantsov-JDdu9q_qihA-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21504"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21557,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21504\/revisions\/21557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}