The 2024 Nobel prize in literature has been awarded to South Korean novelist Han Kang for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. Her works include The Vegetarian, The White Book, Human Acts and Greek Lessons.
South Korean author Han Kang won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature for "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life," the award-giving body said. The Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences made this announcement on Thursday and the prize is worth 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).
The Nobel announcements, spanning six days, began on Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun being honored with the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Newly awarded literature laureate Han Kang’s work is characterised by this double exposure of pain, a correspondence between mental and physical torment with close connections to Eastern thinking.
In Han Kang’s short story 에우로파 (2012; ‘Europa’, 2019), the male narrator,… pic.twitter.com/jyyRIvnQ0X
"She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in her poetic and experimental style has become an innovator in contemporary prose," Anders Olsson, chairman of the academy's Nobel Committee, said in a statement, news agency Reuters reported.
Han Kang, the first South Korean to win the literature prize, began her career in 1993 with the publication of a number of poems in the magazine Literature and Society, while her prose debut came in 1995 with the short story collection "Love of Yeosu".
Her major international breakthrough came with the novel "The Vegetarian".
Kang’s novels, novellas, essays and short story collections have variously explored themes of patriarchy, violence, grief and humanity. Her 2007 novel The Vegetarian, which was translated into English in 2015 by Deborah Smith, won the International Booker prize in 2016.
Meanwhile, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 116 times to 120 laureates from 1901 to 2023.