Note: We deliver all images in WebP format. Since September 2022, all modern browsers are supporting this format. It seems you are using an older browser that cannot display images in WebP format. Please update your browser.

Work of art by Mary Flanagan depicting floating walls in front of a blue sky over a blue sea.

Access Word – JMB Book Club “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang

As part of the exhibition Access Kafka

Read along!

A woman becomes a vegetarian, eventually refuses to eat altogether and believes she can turn into a plant. 

Past event

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The W. M. Blumenthal Academy is marked in green

Where

W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
Klaus Mangold Auditorium
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
(Opposite the Museum)

Where, when, what?

In addition to its motivic proximity to Kafka's stories such as The Metamorphosis or A Hunger Artist, Han Kang's novel The Vegetarian (Nobel Prize for Literature 2024, International Man Booker Prize 2016) impresses with its complexity. We would like to explore this in more detail - together with the publisher Gunnar Cynybulk (Kanon-Verlag), who discovered Han Kang for the German book market, and Monika Sommerer, Head of the JMB Library.

The program accompanying the exhibition is supported by the Berliner Sparkasse.

Franz Kafka, Black Notebook - Drawings, ca. 1923, סימול ARC. 4* 2000 05 037, Max Brod Archive, The National Library of Israel

Line drawing of a person sitting at a round table with his head resting on his arm.

Franz Kafka, Black Notebook - Drawings, ca. 1923, סימול ARC. 4* 2000 05 037, Max Brod Archive, The National Library of Israel
Work of art by Mary Flanagan depicting floating walls in front of a blue sky over a blue sea.

Exhibition ACCESS KAFKA: Features & Programs

Exhibition Webpage

Access Kafka (13 Dec 2024 to 4 May 2025): Information on the exhibition chapters, artworks and documents

Publications

Digital Content

  • Access Deferred: Essay by Vivian Liska on Kafka’s Judaism, from the exhibition catalog, 2024
  • Kafka in Berlin: Berlin walk on Jewish Places to biographical stations of Franz Kafka, written by Hans-Gerd Koch

See also

Franz Kafka, writer: A short biography and further online content on the topic

Where, when, what?

  • WhenTue 21 Jan 2025, 6.30 pm
  • Where W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
    Klaus Mangold Auditorium
    Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
    (Opposite the Museum)
    See location on map
  • Entry fee

    6 € (reduced rate 3 €) – Booking opens soon in our ticket shop.