A TV screen shows an image of the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, South Korean writer Han Kang, during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024.
(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
By Associated Press - Thursday, October 10, 2024
SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans reacted with joy and astonishment on Thursday after learning that homegrown writer Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in literature, an unexpected moment that stoked national pride about the country’s growing cultural influence.
Han, known for her experimental and often disturbing stories that explore human traumas and violence and incorporate the brutal moments of South Korea’s modern history, is the country’s first writer to win the preeminent award in world literature.
Han’s triumph adds to the growing global influence of South Korean culture, which in recent years included the successes of director Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning “Parasite,” the brutal Netflix survival drama “Squid Game” and K-pop groups like BTS and BLACKPINK.
“I’m so surprised and honored,” Han, 53, said in a telephone interview posted on the X account of the Nobel Prize.
As the news spread in South Korea, some online bookstores temporarily froze following a sudden jump in traffic. South Korean social media were flooded with jubilant messages expressing admiration and pride. Some internet users found it meaningful that Han was the first Asian woman to win the award and portrayed it as a statement toward the country’s traditionally male-dominated literature scene.
“It’s always the women who do the big things,” one Facebook user wrote.
While visiting Laos for a meeting of Asian leaders, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a statement, congratulating Han on her award, calling it a “great achievement in the history of Korean literature” and a “special moment for the nation.”
“You converted the painful wounds of our modern history into great literature,” Yoon wrote. “I send my respects to you for elevating the value of Korean literature.”
Han, the daughter of renowned South Korean novelist Han Seung-won, made her publishing debut as a poet in 1993. She won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for the novel “The Vegetarian,” a story in which a woman’s decision to stop eating meat brings devastating consequences and raises concern among family members that she’s mentally ill. The book sold more than 100,000 in the U.S.
Another one of Han’s well-known novels is “Human Acts,” which is set in 1980 in her birth city of Gwangju and follows a boy searching for the body of a friend who was killed in a violent suppression of a student protest. South Korea’s former military government that year sent troops to Gwangju for a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that left around 200 people dead and hundreds of others injured.
Han’s award generated excitement among South Korean writers and critics, who in comments to local media expressed hope that it would bring more global attention to South Korean literature. But it remains to be seen whether Han’s stories would become widely popular among casual readers around the world, said Brother Anthony of Taize, a British-born scholar and prolific translator of Korean literature.
“It’s not always an easy read,” he said, describing how her novels are often complicated stories about communication failures, misunderstandings, “unhappy people and troubled relationships and pain.”
If Han’s works have anything in common with South Korea’s other cultural products that garnered international acclaim in recent years, it is that they often reflect the dark side of the country’s society. Both Parasite and Squid Game provided biting commentaries on the country’s deepening inequality and other problems that have many young and poor people describing their lives as a hellish nightmare.
South Korea has one of the largest gaps between rich and poor among developed economies and is grappling with decaying job markets, soaring household debt and a record-low birth rate as struggling couples put off having babies. The country also struggles to deal with the pains of its brutal transition from dictatorship to democracy.
“Korean society is rather dark and it’s probably the aspect that resonates,” Brother Anthony said.
Jung Yoon-young, a 49-year-old resident in Seoul, said Han’s triumph was a refreshing moment for the country during depressing times.
“It’s a miraculous event and really a breath of fresh air,” she said. “I’m grateful and proud.”
South Korea’s Han Kang wins literature Nobel
STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Author Han Kang yesterday became the first South Korean to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for work characterised by the correspondence between mental and physical torment as well as historical events.
Han, 53, was honoured “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”, the Swedish Academy said.
A short story writer and novelist, Han is best known for her book The Vegetarian, which was her major international breakthrough and won the Man Booker Prize in 2016.
Written in three parts, the book details a woman’s choice to stop eating meat and the devasting consequences it has on her personal life.
“This is a very rich and complex oeuvre that spans many genres,” Academy member Anna-Karin Palm told reporters.
“Han Kang writes this really intense lyrical prose that is both tender and brutal and sometimes slightly surreal,” she said.
STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Author Han Kang yesterday became the first South Korean to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for work characterised by the correspondence between mental and physical torment as well as historical events.
Han, 53, was honoured “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”, the Swedish Academy said.
A short story writer and novelist, Han is best known for her book The Vegetarian, which was her major international breakthrough and won the Man Booker Prize in 2016.
Written in three parts, the book details a woman’s choice to stop eating meat and the devasting consequences it has on her personal life.
“This is a very rich and complex oeuvre that spans many genres,” Academy member Anna-Karin Palm told reporters.
“Han Kang writes this really intense lyrical prose that is both tender and brutal and sometimes slightly surreal,” she said.
South Korean author Han Kang in Seoul.
PHOTO: AFP
Han’s 2014 novel Human Acts was inspired by a massacre carried out by the South Korean military in 1980 and deals with the death of a young boy amid the democratic uprising.
Two years later, she published The White Book, dedicated to her older sister who passed away hours after being born, with the Academy noting her “poetic style”.
The Academy described Han’s 2010 book The Wind Blows, Go as a “complex novel about friendship and artistry, in which grief and a longing for transformation are strongly present”.
During the presidency of Park Geun-hye from 2013-2017, Han was among more than 9,000 artists blacklisted for their criticism of Park’s government.
The artists had voiced support for liberal opposition parties, or criticised Park’s conservative government and its policy failures, including the botched rescue efforts after the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking in which around 300 people died.
Han’s Nobel win yesterday surprised prize-watchers, not having featured in speculation in the run-up to the announcement.
Last year, the award went to Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse, whose plays are among the most widely staged of any contemporary playwright in the world.
The Academy has long been criticised for the overrepresentation of Western white men authors among its picks.
With no official shortlist, experts had speculated that it may shine its spotlight further afield this year.
Since it was first awarded in 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been a Eurocentric, male affair.
Out of 121 laureates, only 18 have been women. But the Academy has made strides in that regard, crowning nine women in the past two decades.
While 30 English-language authors and 16 French-language ones have won, Han is the first South Korean to have won.
Similarly, there has only been one Arabic writer to win: Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz in 1988
Han’s 2014 novel Human Acts was inspired by a massacre carried out by the South Korean military in 1980 and deals with the death of a young boy amid the democratic uprising.
Two years later, she published The White Book, dedicated to her older sister who passed away hours after being born, with the Academy noting her “poetic style”.
The Academy described Han’s 2010 book The Wind Blows, Go as a “complex novel about friendship and artistry, in which grief and a longing for transformation are strongly present”.
During the presidency of Park Geun-hye from 2013-2017, Han was among more than 9,000 artists blacklisted for their criticism of Park’s government.
The artists had voiced support for liberal opposition parties, or criticised Park’s conservative government and its policy failures, including the botched rescue efforts after the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking in which around 300 people died.
Han’s Nobel win yesterday surprised prize-watchers, not having featured in speculation in the run-up to the announcement.
Last year, the award went to Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse, whose plays are among the most widely staged of any contemporary playwright in the world.
The Academy has long been criticised for the overrepresentation of Western white men authors among its picks.
With no official shortlist, experts had speculated that it may shine its spotlight further afield this year.
Since it was first awarded in 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been a Eurocentric, male affair.
Out of 121 laureates, only 18 have been women. But the Academy has made strides in that regard, crowning nine women in the past two decades.
While 30 English-language authors and 16 French-language ones have won, Han is the first South Korean to have won.
Similarly, there has only been one Arabic writer to win: Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz in 1988
Han Kang: A guide to the Nobel Prize winning author
Jonny Walfisz
Thu 10 October 2024
Han Kang: A guide to the Nobel Prize winning author
South Korean writer Han Kang has been announced as the 2024 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, with the Swedish Academy praising "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
It’s a historic win as Han, 53, becomes the first Asian woman to win the prize and is only the second Korean winner.
South Korean author Han Kang becomes only 18th woman to win Nobel Prize in Literature
Han was born in Gwangju in 1970 and moved to the capital Seoul as a child. She studied Korean Literature at Yonsei University and began publishing poems and short stories in the 90s. Her first novel was "A Love of Yeosu" was published in 1995.
In South Korea, Han has been a long celebrated member of the literary scene, winning the Korean Fiction Award, the Yi Sang Literary Award Grand Prize, the Dong-in Literary Award, and the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts among many others.
Internationally, she has also won the International Booker Prize, the Premio Malaparte, the San Clemente Literary Prize, the Prix Médicis étranger and was elected as a Royal Society of Literature International Writer in 2023.
For those unacquainted with the South Korean author, here’s our guide to Han Kang’s work.
Books by the South Korean writer Han Kang displayed at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. - Jessica Gow/JESSICA GOW
The famous one
Han won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for a novel she’d written over a decade earlier. "The Vegetarian" was first published in South Korea in 2007 based on her 1997 short story "The Fruit of My Woman." Its publication in English marked the first of a fruitful collaboration with translator Deborah Smith – who shares the International Booker Prize win – and Han’s entry into the international literary realm.
"The Vegetarian" is a unique tale of Yeong-hye, a woman who disrupts the social milieu of middle-class Seoul society when she starts refusing to eat meat. The tension that arises over Yeong-hye’s refusal to eat meat leads to similar refusals of societal mores as her behaviour is increasingly criticised as erratic and insane.
What’s so striking about "The Vegetarian" is how it puts the simple act of a woman refusing to eat meat as the bouncing board for an entire family to fall apart. Han’s depiction of Korean domestic life as so fragile, it’s thanks to her – and Deborah Smith’s – masterful prose that it balances the decorum and fury with ease.
The new one
What you consider Han’s latest novel is somewhat dependent on a few factors: whether you can read Korean and whether you care about publishing order of the original vs the translation. If you do read Korean, Han’s 2021 novel "Don’t Say Goodbye" is her most recent and will be released in English translation by Emily Yae Won and Paige Aniyah Morris sometime next year.
A book store employee handles books by the South Korean writer Han Kang in London, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. - Kin Cheung/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved
Before that, Han’s previous novel was "White", released in 2016 in Korea and translated by Smith into English for a 2017 publication as "The White Book". However, to most international audiences, Han’s newest novel is "Greek Lessons".
Published last year, "Greek Lessons" was originally released in 2011 in Korea as "Greek Time". Translated by Smith and Yae Won, it follows a similar path to "The Vegetarian" where it takes a disempowered woman through an existential journey.
This time, it’s a mute woman who takes a class in Ancient Greek as an attempt to reclaim her ability over language. While the woman explores her loss of speech through the lens of her other many personal losses, she grows closer to the teacher who has lost his sight and connection to family. Although small in size, where "Greek Lessons" expands on from "The Vegetarian" is its dissection of humanity through the language we use.
Where to go next?
Although Han has a large bibliography, the number of English translations are relatively sparse. If her winning the Nobel Prize reflects the trend seen with French writer Annie Ernaux two years ago, many more of her novels will soon get the translations they deserve.
In the interim, the two key texts for non-Korean speakers to get their teeth into are "The White Book" and "Human Acts". Both are period novels, set around important historic moments.
Armed South Korean government soldiers take captured rebels to a collection point in the riot-battered city of Gwangju (Kwangju), South Korea, May 27, 1980 - SADAYUKI MIKAMI/1980 AP
"The White Book" takes readers to Europe through Han’s literary lens. Set after the end of World War II in Poland, it is an elongated meditation on grief through 65 different white objects. Anyone who liked Maggie Nelson’s "Bluets" will know how powerful a literary mechanism this can be. Released in English in 2017, it was nominated for the next year’s International Booker Prize.
"Human Acts" takes place amongst the Gwangju Uprising, known in Korea as May 18, the student protests that took place in 1980 in response to the coup the day prior that installed a military dictatorship over South Korea. The uprising was violently stopped by the military with US support. Han has said that "Human Acts" is her most representative work and for non-Korean readers, offers an insight into a crucial moment in the country’s history.
Jonny Walfisz
Thu 10 October 2024
Han Kang: A guide to the Nobel Prize winning author
South Korean writer Han Kang has been announced as the 2024 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, with the Swedish Academy praising "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
It’s a historic win as Han, 53, becomes the first Asian woman to win the prize and is only the second Korean winner.
South Korean author Han Kang becomes only 18th woman to win Nobel Prize in Literature
Han was born in Gwangju in 1970 and moved to the capital Seoul as a child. She studied Korean Literature at Yonsei University and began publishing poems and short stories in the 90s. Her first novel was "A Love of Yeosu" was published in 1995.
In South Korea, Han has been a long celebrated member of the literary scene, winning the Korean Fiction Award, the Yi Sang Literary Award Grand Prize, the Dong-in Literary Award, and the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts among many others.
Internationally, she has also won the International Booker Prize, the Premio Malaparte, the San Clemente Literary Prize, the Prix Médicis étranger and was elected as a Royal Society of Literature International Writer in 2023.
For those unacquainted with the South Korean author, here’s our guide to Han Kang’s work.
Books by the South Korean writer Han Kang displayed at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. - Jessica Gow/JESSICA GOW
The famous one
Han won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for a novel she’d written over a decade earlier. "The Vegetarian" was first published in South Korea in 2007 based on her 1997 short story "The Fruit of My Woman." Its publication in English marked the first of a fruitful collaboration with translator Deborah Smith – who shares the International Booker Prize win – and Han’s entry into the international literary realm.
"The Vegetarian" is a unique tale of Yeong-hye, a woman who disrupts the social milieu of middle-class Seoul society when she starts refusing to eat meat. The tension that arises over Yeong-hye’s refusal to eat meat leads to similar refusals of societal mores as her behaviour is increasingly criticised as erratic and insane.
What’s so striking about "The Vegetarian" is how it puts the simple act of a woman refusing to eat meat as the bouncing board for an entire family to fall apart. Han’s depiction of Korean domestic life as so fragile, it’s thanks to her – and Deborah Smith’s – masterful prose that it balances the decorum and fury with ease.
The new one
What you consider Han’s latest novel is somewhat dependent on a few factors: whether you can read Korean and whether you care about publishing order of the original vs the translation. If you do read Korean, Han’s 2021 novel "Don’t Say Goodbye" is her most recent and will be released in English translation by Emily Yae Won and Paige Aniyah Morris sometime next year.
A book store employee handles books by the South Korean writer Han Kang in London, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. - Kin Cheung/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved
Before that, Han’s previous novel was "White", released in 2016 in Korea and translated by Smith into English for a 2017 publication as "The White Book". However, to most international audiences, Han’s newest novel is "Greek Lessons".
Published last year, "Greek Lessons" was originally released in 2011 in Korea as "Greek Time". Translated by Smith and Yae Won, it follows a similar path to "The Vegetarian" where it takes a disempowered woman through an existential journey.
This time, it’s a mute woman who takes a class in Ancient Greek as an attempt to reclaim her ability over language. While the woman explores her loss of speech through the lens of her other many personal losses, she grows closer to the teacher who has lost his sight and connection to family. Although small in size, where "Greek Lessons" expands on from "The Vegetarian" is its dissection of humanity through the language we use.
Where to go next?
Although Han has a large bibliography, the number of English translations are relatively sparse. If her winning the Nobel Prize reflects the trend seen with French writer Annie Ernaux two years ago, many more of her novels will soon get the translations they deserve.
In the interim, the two key texts for non-Korean speakers to get their teeth into are "The White Book" and "Human Acts". Both are period novels, set around important historic moments.
Armed South Korean government soldiers take captured rebels to a collection point in the riot-battered city of Gwangju (Kwangju), South Korea, May 27, 1980 - SADAYUKI MIKAMI/1980 AP
"The White Book" takes readers to Europe through Han’s literary lens. Set after the end of World War II in Poland, it is an elongated meditation on grief through 65 different white objects. Anyone who liked Maggie Nelson’s "Bluets" will know how powerful a literary mechanism this can be. Released in English in 2017, it was nominated for the next year’s International Booker Prize.
"Human Acts" takes place amongst the Gwangju Uprising, known in Korea as May 18, the student protests that took place in 1980 in response to the coup the day prior that installed a military dictatorship over South Korea. The uprising was violently stopped by the military with US support. Han has said that "Human Acts" is her most representative work and for non-Korean readers, offers an insight into a crucial moment in the country’s history.
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