South Korean author Han Kang receives the Nobel Prize for Literature

STOCKHOLM (AP) — South Korean poet and novelist Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday for a poetic and disturbing work that, according to the Nobel committee, “explores historical trauma and exposes the fragility of human life.”

Han is a slowly rising international literary star who has won several awards in Korea and Europe. She is the first Asian woman and the first South Korean writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. She has won awards for books including “The Vegetarian” and “Human Acts,” which explore the pain of being human and the scars of Korea’s turbulent history.

Anna-Karin Palm, a member of the Nobel Committee for Literature, said Han writes about “trauma, pain and loss,” whether individual or collective, “with the same compassion and care.”

“And that, in my opinion, is something quite remarkable,” Palm said.

Nobel Committee chairman Anders Olsson praised Han's “empathy for the vulnerable, often female lives” of her characters.

“She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead,” Olsson said.

Han is the second South Korean citizen to win a Nobel Prize. Late former President Kim Dae-jung won the peace prize in 2000 for his efforts to restore democracy in South Korea during the country's previous military rule and improve relations with war-torn rival North Korea.

Han wins the Nobel Prize at a time of growing global influence for South Korean culture, which in recent years has included the success of films such as the Oscar-winning “” from director Bong Joon-ho. parasite“, the Netflix survival drama “Squid Game” and the worldwide fame of K-pop Groups like BTS and BLACKPINK.

Han, 53, won the 2016 International Booker Prize for “The Vegetarian,” a disturbing novel in which a woman's decision to stop eating meat has devastating consequences.

On winning the prize, Han said that writing novels was “a way of questioning for me.”

“I just try to complete my questions through the process of my writing, and I try to stay with the questions, sometimes painful, sometimes, well, sometimes challenging,” she said.

With “The Vegetarian,” she said, “I wanted to ask questions about humanity and describe a woman who desperately wanted to no longer belong to humanity.”

Han made her publishing debut as a poet in 1993; Her first short story collection was published in 1995 and her first novel, Black Deer, in 1998. Works translated into English include The Vegetarian, Greek Lessons, Human Acts and The White Book, a poem novel dealing with concerned with the death of Han's older sister shortly after birth. “The White Book” was a finalist in the 2018 International Booker Prize.

Her latest novel, We Do Not Part, is due to be published in English next year. It deals with a chapter of South Korea's turbulent history in the 20th century, during which the country endured war, division of the Korean Peninsula and dictatorship. The novel is about an uprising on Jeju, an island south of mainland Korea, in which thousands of people were killed between 1948 and 1949.

“Human Acts” — which Olsson, the Nobel Committee chairman, called a work of “witness literature” — is based on the real-life killing of pro-democracy protesters in Han’s hometown of Gwangju in 1980. The book won Italy’s Malaparte Prize in 2017 .

Anders Karlsson, a lecturer at London's School of Oriental and African Studies who translated Han into Swedish, said he was “overjoyed” to receive the Nobel Prize.

He said Han's “poignant, condensed” prose is able to “describe difficult and dark passages in South Korean history… in quite open and inviting language that engages rather than deters the reader.”

The literary prize has long been criticized for focusing too much on European and North American authors of style-heavy, plot-poor prose. The award was also dominated by men, so that until this year's awards ceremony there were only 17 women among the 119 winners. The last woman to win was Annie Ernaux of France in 2022.

Six days of Nobel Prize announcements began on Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize. Two founding fathers of machine learning – John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton – won the prize Physics Prize. On Wednesday, three scientists who discovered powerful techniques for decoding and even designing novel proteins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the Economics Prize on Monday.

The price is endowed with a cash prize of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1 million) from an estate of the initiator of the award, the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. Laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

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An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that “Human Acts” was a finalist for the 2018 International Booker Prize. “The White Book” was a finalist for the award.

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Lawless reported from London. Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea contributed.