South Korean author Han Kang was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, recognizing her rich and complex body of work that spans various genres and combines tenderness with brutality.
Han Kang’s win is a landmark moment for South Korea, marking the first Nobel Prize in Literature for South Korea and the second Nobel overall, the first having been awarded to former President Kim Dae-jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.
In a statement about her win, the chairman of the Nobel Committee, Anders Olsson, praised Han Kang for her “unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in her poetic and experimental style has become an innovator in contemporary prose.”
In her oeuvre, 2024 literature laureate Han Kang confronts historical traumas and invisible sets of rules and, in each of her works, exposes the fragility of human life. She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in her… pic.twitter.com/iS5KsU7GtM
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 10, 2024
Han Kang was born in 1970 to a literary family, with her father also being a respected novelist. She began her career in 1993, publishing poetry in the magazine Literature and Society.
Her international breakthrough came in 2007 with her novel The Vegetarian, which gained global recognition and won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016. The novel tells the story of Yeong-hye, a woman plagued by disturbing nightmares who rejects societal norms by forsaking meat, much to the concern of her family. This novel, as well as her other works, often confront deep emotional and historical wounds, intertwining themes of personal and collective suffering.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in turn congratulated Han Kang, calling her win “a great achievement in the history of Korean literature.” He acknowledged her ability to transform the painful scars of Korea’s modern history into extraordinary works of literature, expressing hope that she will continue to receive international love and recognition.
Books by South Korean writer Han Kang are displayed in the Swedish Academy after she was named the 2024 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm, Sweden, October 10, 2024. REUTERS/Tom Little
One of Han Kang’s most powerful works, Human Acts (2014), is based on the Gwangju Uprising of 1980, where South Korean military forces brutally suppressed democratic protests, killing hundreds of students and civilians. Nobel Committee member Anna-Karin Palm highlighted the novel’s exploration of how historical traumas persist across generations and noted that Han Kang’s precise and tender prose stands as a counterforce to the harsh realities of power.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is the fourth to be awarded this week, following those for chemistry, physics, and medicine. The Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday, with the economics prize following on Monday.
