The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful. PROVERBS 12:22

I read The Vegetarian and fell in love with it. A year later, I was invited to go and speak at the London Book Fair (which I'd never even heard of before), as they were gearing up for Korea being the market focus country in 2014. I met Max Porter there, Kang's editor at Portobello, sent him my sample, and the rest is history.

Hwang Jung-eun is one of the brightest stars of the new South Korean generation - she's Han Kang's favourite, and the novel we're publishing scooped the prestigious Bookseller's Award, for critically-acclaimed fiction that also has a wide popular appeal. She stands out for her focus on social minorities - her protagonists are slum inhabitants, trans women, orphans - and for the way she melds this hard-edged social critique with obliquely fantastical elements and offbeat dialogue.

Our first-year list is Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay (translated by Arunava Sinha), Hwang Jung-eun (translated by Jung Yewon), and Khairani Barokka.

There's no linear narrative - the structure is more like a series of variations on a theme (how identity is shaped by language), with the past constantly bleeding into the present, dreams into reality. And the language, while incredibly lyrical in places, also has this underlying dissonance, the sense of it having itself been translated.

A chorus of tough southern belles whispered, You need a loyal husband around here. Loyal to you, loyal to your family, loyal to your land. I added, Good in bed, smart, and romantic. Politically, socially, and religiously compatible. And he had to want children.

A photograph is a souvenir of life!