NCS
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The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean writer, for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
Han, 53, started her profession with a gaggle of poems in a South Korean journal, earlier than making her prose debut in 1995 with a brief story assortment.
She later started writing longer prose works, most notably “The Vegetarian,” considered one of her first books to be translated into English. The novel, which received the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, charts a younger girl’s try and stay a extra “plant-like” existence after struggling macabre nightmares about human cruelty.
Han is the primary South Korean writer to win the literature prize, and simply the 18th girl out of the 117 prizes awarded since 1901. The prize, introduced in Sweden on Thursday, carries a money award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million).
In an announcement posted to Facebook on Thursday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol described Han’s win as “a great achievement in the history of Korean literature” and a “national occasion.” He added: “Han has turned the painful scars of our modern history into great literature.”
Much of Han’s work poses the query, voiced by a personality in her 2019 novel “Europa,” whose protagonist is wracked by nightmares: “If you were able to live as you desire, what would you do with your life?”
Although lots of Han’s protagonists are ladies, her prose works are sometimes narrated from the attitude of males.
“Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way,” her novel “The Vegetarian” begins. “However, if there wasn’t any special attraction, nor did any particular drawbacks present themselves, and therefore there was no reason for the two of us not to get married.”
Originally written and printed in Korean, “The Vegetarian” was translated by Deborah Smith, who was 28 on the time. Smith, by her personal admission, was “monolingual until the age of 21,” and solely selected to pursue Korean as a consequence of a scarcity of English-Korean translators.
The Swedish Academy lauded Han’s work for her “unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead.” Through her “poetic and experimental style,” the Academy stated, Han “has become an innovator in contemporary prose.”
Anna-Karin Palm, a member of the Nobel Committee for literature, stated readers unfamiliar with Han’s work ought to start with “Human Acts,” a 2014 novel reflecting on the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, when greater than 100 civilians have been killed throughout pro-democracy demonstrations led by college students in the South Korean metropolis.
“Human Acts” exhibits how “the living and the dead are always intertwined and how these kinds of traumas stay in a population for generations,” Palm stated at Thursday’s announcement ceremony.
But Han’s “intense, lyrical” writing nearly acts as comfort in the face of this historic violence, Palm added. “Her very tender, precise prose in itself almost becomes a counterforce to the brutal noisiness of power,” she stated.
Han’s novels rocketed up South Korea’s bestseller lists following the announcement. As of Friday morning, her books occupied the entire high 10 spots in common on-line retailer Yes24’s chart for Korean titles. The bookseller instructed NCS over the telephone that three of them — “Human Acts,” “The Vegetarian” and “I Do Not Bid Farewell” — had racked up mixed gross sales of 70,000 models throughout the 14 hours instantly following the information.
At the Seoul flagship of bookstore chain Kyobo Book Centre, consumers welcomed Han’s win. “I’m very proud of her,” high-school trainer Choi Ji-hye instructed NCS, including that she had been “shocked” to listen to the information.
For engineering pupil Kim Jee-heon, in the meantime, the announcement sparked a newfound curiosity in the writer’s work. “This is my first time hearing about her, but… I was really amazed to hear that a Korean woman writer had won the prize, so I came here to look for her books.”
Elsewhere, a number of high-profile figures paid tribute to the novelist through social media, together with musicians RM and V, members of the K-pop group BTS. “I read ‘Human Acts’ in the army,” the latter wrote on Instagram Stories. “Congratulations!”
Before the announcement, Ellen Mattson, one other member of the committee, detailed how the judging panel units about choosing annually’s literature laureate.
“We start with a very long list of around 220 names,” Mattson stated. “Then we have to navigate through this enormous mass of names – and there we need the help of experts from different parts of the world.”
Eventually, the committee reaches a group of “about 20 names,” which is then narrowed right down to a shortlist of 5 authors. “That’s where the real work starts,” Mattson stated.
Each committee member then has to “read everything by these five writers” as they start to residence in on a single winner.
Announcing the award, Mats Malm, everlasting secretary of the Swedish Academy, stated Han was “having an ordinary day” and had “just finished supper with her son” when he phoned to congratulate her.
“She wasn’t really prepared for this, but we have begun to discuss preparations for December,” he stated. The Nobel Prize award ceremony takes place in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s dying in 1896.