The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature Honor: Korean Novelist Han Kang
October 25 2024 | Sam Lee
Photo by Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature honor went to Korean novelist Han Kang. This is the second time a Korean has won the Nobel Prize, following the late former President Kim Dae-jung, who won the Peace Prize in 2000.
The Swedish Academy announced the results on the 10th (local time).
The Nobel Committee of the Academy stated the reason for the selection, saying, “It is a powerful poetic prose that confronts historical trauma and reveals the fragility of human life.”At a press conference, Mats Malm, the chairman of the Life Committee, said that he highly praised the author’s “powerful poetic prose that confronts the wounds of history and reveals the fragility of human life.” Malm said that Han Kang had said in a phone call an hour before the announcement of the award that she had “just had dinner with her son after spending the day like any other.” The winner will receive a prize of 11 million kronor (approximately 1 million U.S. dollars), a medal, and a certificate. Han Kang, the daughter of novelist Han Seung-won, was born in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, in 1970. Han Kang, who was familiar with novels from a young age, studied Korean literature at Yonsei University. She entered the path of a writer in 1993 when her poem “Winter of Seoul” was selected for Literature and Society and her short story “Red Anchor” was selected for the Seoul Newspaper New Year’s Literary Contest in 1994. In 2016, she won the Man Booker International Prize, one of the world’s three major literary awards, for “The Vegetarian,” gaining worldwide fame. The following year, she won the Italian Malaparte Literary Award for “The Boy Comes” and the Spanish San Clemente Literary Award for “The Vegetarian” in 2018. In September 2021, her novel “I Don’t Say Goodbye,” published after five years, won the French Médicis Prize for Foreign Literature last year.
The Swedish Academy announced the results on the 10th (local time).
The Nobel Committee of the Academy stated the reason for the selection, saying, “It is a powerful poetic prose that confronts historical trauma and reveals the fragility of human life.”At a press conference, Mats Malm, the chairman of the Life Committee, said that he highly praised the author’s “powerful poetic prose that confronts the wounds of history and reveals the fragility of human life.” Malm said that Han Kang had said in a phone call an hour before the announcement of the award that she had “just had dinner with her son after spending the day like any other.” The winner will receive a prize of 11 million kronor (approximately 1 million U.S. dollars), a medal, and a certificate. Han Kang, the daughter of novelist Han Seung-won, was born in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, in 1970. Han Kang, who was familiar with novels from a young age, studied Korean literature at Yonsei University. She entered the path of a writer in 1993 when her poem “Winter of Seoul” was selected for Literature and Society and her short story “Red Anchor” was selected for the Seoul Newspaper New Year’s Literary Contest in 1994. In 2016, she won the Man Booker International Prize, one of the world’s three major literary awards, for “The Vegetarian,” gaining worldwide fame. The following year, she won the Italian Malaparte Literary Award for “The Boy Comes” and the Spanish San Clemente Literary Award for “The Vegetarian” in 2018. In September 2021, her novel “I Don’t Say Goodbye,” published after five years, won the French Médicis Prize for Foreign Literature last year.