South Korean author wins her country’s first Nobel Prize in literature

South Korean author Han Kang has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her remarkable exploration of themes such as grief, violence, and patriarchy.

The 58-year-old novelist is the first South Korean to receive this prestigious honor.

Han gained international recognition in 2016 when she won the Man Booker International Prize for her novel The Vegetarian.

The Nobel Prize committee lauded her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and reveals the fragility of human life.”

She is the 18th woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature since its inception in 1901.

An avid enthusiast of music and art, Han expressed surprise at winning the Nobel Prize, as she had not anticipated the honor.

“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,” Mats Malm, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy stated.

Han is the first female Nobel laureate of this year and the first since 2022, when a French novelist was awarded the prize.

Her body of work includes phenomenal novels such as The White Book, Human Acts, and Greek Lessons.