The South Korean author Han Kang has been named this year’s Nobel Laureate in the field of literature, announced earlier today. Originally being published in 1995, Kang is most reputed for her novel The Vegetarian, the first novel in Korean to win the International Booker Prize in Fiction in 2016. She received the news of her award this morning.
Announced to a waiting press pool this morning in Stockholm, Sweden, as well as on social media, the Swedish Institute, the coordinating body for the annual prizes, awarded Kang this year’s prize “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. Having contacted Kang personally, Swedish Academy Permanent Secretary Mats Malm spoke to her reaction, saying “[Han Kang] was having an ordinary day it seemed – had just finished supper with her son. She wasn’t really prepared for this, but we have begun to discuss preparations for December”. She is the 18th woman to win the prize, and the first South Korean author.
The daughter of novelist Han Seung-won, Han Kang studied Korean Literature at Yonsei University, before being enrolled in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Programme. Her first works to be published consisted of five poems in Literature and Society, in 1993, before being followed by her own publication, Love in Yeosu in 1995. Since then, Kang has published over twenty works in Korean and English, including her autobiographical novel The White Book, detailing the loss of her baby sister hours after her own birth. She has won a variety of awards throughout her career, including the Yi Sang Literary Award Grand Prize (The Vegetarian), the Malaparte Prize (Human Acts) and the Prix Médicis étranger (We Do Not Part).
The Nobel Prize in Literature is an annual prize awarded to those who have made exceptional contributions to the literary domain, and sits alongside five other Nobel Prizes, including physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, economics and peace. Previous winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature include Bob Dylan, Harold Pinter, William Golding and John Steinbeck. Winners of the Nobel prize are awarded a medal, a cash prize, as well as a diploma, each being a unique work of art.
Han Kang’s announcement as the 121st Nobel Laureate in Literature has drawn praise from across the globe for her work, both poetic and literary, and sees her join an eclectic group of previous laureates awarded this honour. With her extensive published works and previous accolades plentiful, Kang now begins preparations to add one of the highest literary honours to her trophy collection.
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature was announced earlier today, with the presentation ceremony scheduled for December 10th in Stockholm, Sweden. Past Nobel Laureates in Literature can be viewed here
