South Korean author Han Kang wins Nobel literature prize; becomes second South Korean Nobel laureate

South Korean author Han Kang, the 2024 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. (Yonhap)

SEOUL: Author Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday, becoming the first South Korean to get the honor, a surprise feat that had her country rejoicing in disbelief.

The Swedish Academy announced Han as this year’s laureate, recognizing the 53-year-old “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

Han is the first Asian female winner in literature and the second South Korean Nobel laureate after former President Kim Dae-jung, who was awarded the peace prize in 2000.

“In her oeuvre, Han Kang confronts historical traumas and in each of her works exposes the fragility of human life,” the Nobel Committee said. “She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in a poetic and experimental style, has become an innovator in contemporary prose.”

Each Nobel Prize is worth 11 million Swedish crowns (US$1.1 million).

The Swedish Academy recognizes achievements in literature, science, medicine, economics and peace. The prizes were created through the will of Swedish scientist and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901, with the economics prize being a later addition.

Han first shot to fame by winning the Man Booker International Prize for fiction in 2016 for “The Vegetarian.” Her Nobel Prize is expected to catapult Han further into the international spotlight.

Han was born in November 1970 in the southwestern city of Gwangju as the daughter of novelist Han Seung-won. She later moved to Seoul with her family and graduated from Yonsei University, majoring in Korean language and literature.

She began her literary career in 1993 by publishing poems in the winter issue of the quarterly “Literature and Society.” The following year, she made her debut as a novelist when her short story “Red Anchor” won a literary contest hosted by the Seoul Shinmun daily.

South Korean author Han Kang (Yonhap)

Han is acclaimed for creating a unique literary world that explores universal human issues, such as death and violence, through a poetic and lyrical style.

Notably, she has given fictional form to the deep darkness and wounds of modern Korean history through novels like “Human Acts” (2014), which deals with the pro-democracy people’s uprising that occurred in 1980 in Gwangju, and “I Do Not Bid Farewell” (2021), which portrays the tragedy of the Jeju April 3 Incident through the perspectives of three women.

Her other notable works include “Yeosu,” “The Fruit of My Woman,” “Your Cold Hands,” “Black Deer,” “The Wind is Blowing” and “Greek Lessons.”

South Korean author Han Kang (Yonhap)

Previous laureates include American novelist Ernest Hemingway, English author Rudyard Kipling, Irish playwright Bernard Shaw, French writer Albert Camus and Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In 2016, American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan became the first musician to win the award.

The Nobel Prize award ceremony takes place at the Stockholm Concert Hall in the Swedish capital each Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

YONHAP