South Korean author bags Nobel Literature

Stockholm: The Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 was awarded to South Korean author Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

Literature laureate Kang’s physical empathy for extreme life stories is reinforced by her increasingly charged metaphorical style.

Han Kang began her career in 1993 with the publication of a number of poems in the magazine ‘Literature and Society’. Her prose debut came in 1995 with the short story collection ‘Love of Yeosu’, followed soon afterwards by several other prose works, both novels and short stories.

Kang’s major international breakthrough came with the novel ‘The Vegetarian’ (2015). Written in three parts, the book portrays the violent consequences that ensue when its protagonist Yeong-hye refuses to submit to the norms of food intake. Her decision not to eat meat is met with various, entirely different reactions.

Born in 1970 in the South Korean city of Gwangju before moving to capital Seoul, Kang comes from a literary background, her father being a reputed novelist. Alongside her writing, she has also devoted herself to art and music, which is reflected throughout her entire literary production.

According to the Nobel Press Conference, she is the first South Korean writer to win the award. Last year, the literature award went to Norwegian author Jon Olav Fosse, for his “innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”.

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish krona ($915,000) and is regarded widely as the world’s most prestigious literary award.