
South Korean author Han Kang was awarded with Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday (Oct 10) for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.
The prize was awarded to Kang, 53, by the Swedish Academy and is worth 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).
Kang was born in Gwangju, South Korea, in 1970. She belongs to a family, who have a literary background. Her father is a reputed novelist.
Her most recent novel 'I Do Not Bid Farewell' was awarded the Medicis Prize in France in 2023, and the Emile Guimet Prize in 2024.
She made her literary debut in 1993, as a poet by publishing five poems, including "Winter in Seoul", in the winter issue of Munhak-gwa-sahoe (Literature and Society). Next year, she began her career as a novelist by winning the 1994 Seoul Shinmun Spring Literary Contest with "Red Anchor".
Later in 1995, she published her first short story collection entitled Yeosu (Munji Publishing Company).
She won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for ‘The Vegetarian’, an unsettling novel in which a woman's decision to stop eating meat has devastating consequences.
Moreover, her work is characterised by this double exposure of pain, a correspondence between mental and physical torment with close connections to Eastern thinking, the committee said.
(With inputs from agencies)