South Korean creator Han Kang has been awarded this yr’s Nobel Prize in Literature, marking her as the primary South Korean to obtain one of many world’s most prestigious literary honors.
Born in November 1970 in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, Han later moved to Seoul and studied Korean literature at Yonsei College. She is the daughter of novelist Han Seung-won.
Her literary profession started in 1993 when she printed 5 poems within the winter version of Quarterly Literature and Society. The next yr, Han made her debut as a novelist by profitable the Seoul Shinmun New Author’s Contest for her quick story “Crimson Anchor.”
Since then, she has garnered quite a few awards, establishing a singular physique of labor that addresses common human points equivalent to loss of life and violence via poetic and lyrical prose.
Han’s first novel to be translated into English, “The Vegetarian,” (printed in 2007 in Korean) received the Worldwide Booker Prize in 2016, translated by Deborah Smith. Han turned the primary Korean to realize the feat.
The e-book tells the story of Yeong-hye, a housewife whose violent nightmares compel her to cease consuming meat, and her household’s reactions to her perception that she is reworking right into a tree.
Boyd Tonkin, the chairman of the Booker judging panel, mentioned, “In a mode each lyrical and lacerating, it reveals the affect of this nice refusal each on the heroine herself and on these round her. This compact, beautiful and disturbing e-book will linger lengthy within the minds, and possibly the desires, of its readers.”
“The White Guide” (printed in 2016) which follows a anonymous narrator who focuses on the colour white to creatively channel her inside ache was shortlisted for the Worldwide Booker Prize in 2018.
Han’s novels, notably “Human Acts” (2014), which offers with the Gwangju Democratization Motion, and “I Do Not Bid Farewell” (2021), which recounts the tragedies of the Jeju April 3 Incident, vividly depict the deep shadows and wounds of recent Korean historical past.
Han mentioned she considers the 2 books as a pair.
“I Do Not Bid Farewell” (launched in Korean in 2021), marked her return to the literary scene 5 years after profitable the Worldwide Booker Prize.
The novel explores the tragic occasions of the Jeju April 3 Incident via the eyes of Gyeong-ha, who visits her pal In-seon after an accident. Throughout her go to, Gyeong-ha confronts the island’s painful historical past via visions of In-seon’s mom, Jeong-sim. As a result of within the story, Gyeong-ha grapples along with her reminiscences of the Gwangju Democratization Motion, the novel has been interpreted as autobiographical. Han has publicly shared that she skilled nightmares after writing “Human Acts.”
In November final yr, throughout a press convention after profitable the Prix Medicis, one of many prestigious French literary awards, for “I Do Not Bid Farewell,” Han Kang acknowledged that she plans to put in writing a novel about life.
Her different notable works embody “Yeosu,” “Fruits of My Lady,” “Your Chilly Fingers,” “Black Deer,” and “Greek Classes.”