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.
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