About the news
- South Korean writer Han Kang has won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, following two years of Europe-centric recipients, Jon Fosse and Annie Ernaux.
- The Swedish Academy awarded her the prestigious honour for her “intense poetic prose” that addresses historical traumas and the fragility of human life.
- At 53, Han Kang, an Asian writer at the peak of her career, is recognized as an “innovator in contemporary prose,” known for her experimental style that explores universal themes of the human condition, including patriarchy, violence, grief, and historical injustices.
- Han Kang began her literary career with poetry, but her breakthrough came with the novel The Vegetarian, first published in Korean in 2007 and later translated into English by Deborah Smith in 2015. The novel garnered international acclaim, winning the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.
- Following The Vegetarian, several of her other works, including Human Acts, The White Book, and Greek Lessons, were translated into English, broadening her global readership.
- Another novel, We Do Not Part, which tells the story of two women against the backdrop of a massacre in 1940s Korea, is set to be translated by e. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris and will be published in early 2025.
- In its bio-bibliography, the Swedish Academy highlights We Do Not Part for its precise and condensed imagery, which captures the lasting power of the past over the present. The novel follows two friends as they attempt to uncover forgotten chapters of history and transform their trauma into a joint art project, which gives the book its title.
- Han Kang is the first Korean writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Throughout her works, she confronts historical traumas and societal rules, exposing the fragility of human life.
- The Academy praised her unique ability to explore the connection between body and soul, the living and the dead, while maintaining a poetic and experimental approach. Above all, Han Kang’s works demonstrate the power of literature to “speak the truth.”
