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By Amir Daftari
News Reporter
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South Korean author Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, recognized for what the Nobel committee described as "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life."
Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel committee, praised Han for her "physical empathy for the vulnerable, often female lives" portrayed in her work.
He added that she possesses "a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead," making her an innovator in contemporary prose through her poetic and experimental style.
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Another Nobel literature committee member, Anna-Karin Palm, noted Han's ability to write "intense lyrical prose that is both tender and brutal, and sometimes slightly surrealistic as well."
Han is the first Asian woman and the first South Korean writer to win the Nobel literature prize. Her victory adds to South Korea's cultural prominence, following other global successes like Bong Joon-ho's Oscar-winning film Parasite and the K-pop phenomenon with groups such as BTS and BLACKPINK. She is also the second South Korean Nobel laureate, after former President Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.
Han, 53, previously won the 2016 International Booker Prize for her novel The Vegetarian, a deeply unsettling story about a woman's decision to stop eating meat, which leads to devastating consequences. Reflecting on her work at that time, Han described writing as a means of questioning, noting that she "tries to stay in the questions" through the process, often finding it painful and demanding.
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In 2018, her novel Human Acts was a finalist for the International Booker Prize. Olsson called it a work of "witness literature," addressing the 1980 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Gwangju, Han's hometown.
Han's literary career began with her debut as a poet in 1993. Her first novel, Black Deer, was published in 1998. Several of her works have been translated into English, including The Vegetarian, Greek Lessons, Human Acts, and The White Book, which explores the death of her older sister shortly after birth. Her latest novel, We Do Not Part, is set to be published in English next year.
Han's Nobel win highlights the committee's shift from its traditional focus on European and North American writers. The literature prize has faced criticism for being male-dominated, with only 17 women among the 119 laureates before this year. Annie Ernaux of France was the last woman to win the prize, in 2022.
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This year's Nobel announcements began with Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize, followed by John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton in physics, and scientists who decoded proteins in chemistry.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday, with the economics award to follow on Oct. 14. Recipients receive 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million).
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press
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