SOUTH KOREA: A South Korean author has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The author whose name is Han Kang also won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007 for her novel, The Vegetarian.
According to a BBC report, Han Kang will receive £810,000 this year which is equivalent to 11 million Swedish kronor. Han is the first South Korean and the 18th woman to win the prize.
Han was seen by the committee as someone who has devoted herself to music and art and she was commended “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
The Nobel Prize board also said that her work crosses boundaries by exploring a broad span of genres – these include violence, grief and patriarchy.
Her book, The Vegetarian, which received a lot of critical acclaim, was translated into English in 2015 by Deborah Smith.
The story of The Vegetarian revolves around Yeong-hye, a young woman who lives an ordinary life in Seoul, Korea. After having violent and disturbing dreams about animals dying, she stops eating meat, which is very uncommon in Korean culture.
This act of hers results in her becoming ostracized from her family and having to face social isolation from society.
Her other well-known books are The White Book, Human Acts and Greek Lessons.
The Nobel Prize committee chair Anders Olsen said that Han Kang had the ability to “confront historical traumas and invisible sets of rules and, in each of her works, exposes the fragility of human life”,
He also spoke highly of her ”poetic and experimental style”, saying that she was an “innovator in contemporary prose.”
The Nobel Prize committee said that she had a “unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead.”
South Korean author Han Kang won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature for ‘her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life’ https://t.co/iBfNBWBMaF pic.twitter.com/YqitkuxMtt
— Reuters (@Reuters) October 10, 2024
The 53-year-old’s first work was published in 1993 and consisted of five poems. She then wrote a short story the following year, making her foray into fiction.
She studied Korean literature at university and is currently working on her sixth novel.
The last time a female won the award was in 2022 when it was given to French author Annie Ernaux.
There is no fixed criteria for the Nobel Prize for literature and it is awarded for a body of work, not just one single book. The winner is often someone whose words have power and the ability to make you feel things when you read, and that power, feeling and depth is present in their entire body of work.