Han Kang Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature for Confronting Historical Traumas with Poetic Prose
by by Basit Jamiu · Legit.ng News · Join- Han Kang has become the first South Korean writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for her "intense poetic prose"
- She is best known for her surrealist novel The Vegetarian, which won the International Booker Prize
- The Nobel Laureate's work often addresses historical traumas, particularly the 1980 Gwangju uprising
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The Swedish Academy has awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Han Kang, the renowned novelist and poet, marking a historic moment as Han becomes the first writer from South Korea to receive the prestigious award.
Announced Thursday morning, Nobel committee chairman Anders Olsson cited Han’s “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
Han, 53, is best known for her 2007 Surrealist novel The Vegetarian, a three-part story about a woman who stops eating meat and suffers violent consequences.
Han Kang recognised for powerful depiction of trauma
This groundbreaking work, upon its English translation, led Han to become the first Korean author to win the International Booker Prize in 2016.
In 2018, Han was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Human Acts, a novel set in the aftermath of the 1980 uprising against the South Korean government in Gwangju—her hometown.
“Han Kang uses this historical base in a very special way,” said committee member Anna-Karin Palm.
“She lets different characters reflect these events, both then and in the present, and also shows how the living and the dead are always intertwined, and how these kinds of traumas stay in a population for generations.”
Born in 1970, Han grew up in a financially struggling family; her father, Han Seung-won, was also a novelist, and they moved frequently.
“It was too much for a little child,” Han told the New York Times’ Alexandra Alter in 2016.
“But I was all right, because I was surrounded by books.”
Han first published in a literary magazine in 1993 and has been a celebrated author in South Korea for decades. The 2015 English translation of The Vegetarian by Deborah Smith propelled Han to the international stage, solidifying her status as a significant literary figure.
Nigerian schools set to honour Wole Soyinka at 90
Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that a group called Initiative for Information, Arts, and Culture Development announced it had gathered over 80 schools to mark and celebrate Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka's 90th birthday.
Wole Soyinka, born in 1934, would be 90 on July 13, 2024.
Proofread by Kola Muhammed, journalist and copyeditor at Legit.ng