Vegetarian Translator Shares Han River's Remarks on SNS, 'It's a War, What Feast'

Deborah Smith, a British translator who translated the Nobel Prize-winning work of Han Kang, posted Han's remarks on her social media that she would not hold a press conference.

Smith shared some of the sentences in the article without much explanation while sharing an English article of a Korean English magazine on his X.

The sentence Smith quoted is, "The war is so fierce that people are carrying carcasses every day, so what kind of party would they have?"

This is what novelist Han Seung-won, Han Kang's father, told reporters earlier on the 11th when he conveyed his daughter Han Kang's intention not to hold a press conference.

Smith is a translator who translated "The Vegetarian" and co-winned the 2016 British prestigious International Booker Prize for Literature, and is the first contributor to bringing Han Kang's work to the world stage.

He started learning Korean by himself, took a master's and doctoral course in Korean studies at the University of London's Oriental African University (SOAS), and took the lead in recognizing and promoting the charm of "vegetarians" in the UK.

Smith also retweeted (re-shared) a post posted on the 11th by translator Paige Morris, who co-translated Han Kang's "I Don't Say Goodbye" with Lee Ye-won.

Morris's post, retweeted by Smith, said, "I thank the journalists for putting translators at the forefront of the conversation about the Nobel Prize in Literature," but added, "But I ask for basic empathy and respect when contacting translators."

Since Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature, Smith has made a quiet move without any outside exposure.

However, Tilted Axis Press, a publisher specializing in Asian and African literature that he co-founded, said, "Congratulations on the award of the Han River," and added, "We also want to praise translators Deborah Smith and Lee Ye-won, who brought his work to the English-speaking world."

"This award is a huge victory for translated literature and independent publishing," he said. "Thank you for your kind words about the Nobel Prize."