Singer HYNN has engraved the phrase “I’ll go on solely what’s pure” on the in-ear monitor she wears whereas performing. The small photograph within the field reveals a notice left by a younger reader at a Han Kang guide show in Kyobo Guide Centre in central Seoul. Korea Occasions photograph by Yang Seung-jun
The rise of ‘1020 Han Kang era’
By KTimes
Singerg Park Hye-won, 26, identified by her stage title “HYNN” and for her hit track “The Lonely Bloom Stands Alone,” drew inspiration for her title from Han Kang’s novel “The White Guide.”
The Korean title of “The White Guide” is “흰 (Huin),” which means white. She selected the title “HYNN” as a result of its pronunciation carefully resembles the Korean title of the novel.
In response to an official from her company, New Order Leisure, Park learn “The White Guide” round 2018, when the novel was first printed. She acquired the guide as a present from a pal whereas she was feeling anxious as she ready for her debut as a singer.
Park was deeply moved by the road, “Even when I develop into tainted, I’ll go on solely what’s pure.” Reflecting on this, she stated, “After studying that sentence, I made a decision: ‘It doesn’t matter what storms or wounds could come, I’ll make music with a pure, honest coronary heart.'”
This is only one instance of how younger artists are discovering inspiration in Han’s literary works, marking the emergence of the “Han Kang Children.”
Han Kang’s “highly effective poetic prose that confronts historic trauma and exposes the fragility of human life” has served as a guiding compass for younger Okay-pop stars all over the world.
BTS member V (actual title Kim Tae-hyung, 29), who enlisted within the navy final winter, additionally learn Han Kang’s novel “Human Acts” throughout his service.
Resistance to stereotype
Opposite to the stereotype that younger individuals keep away from studying, Han’s literature has discovered a big following amongst Korea’s youth. Her works, together with “Fruit of My Girl,” are featured in highschool literature textbooks, and college students typically interact in discussions about her novels at school.
A current Gallup Korea survey revealed that 25.5 % of respondents aged 18-29 had learn Han’s novels earlier than she gained the Nobel Prize, the best proportion amongst all age teams.
Regardless of criticisms of declining literacy amongst youthful generations, it seems that this demographic is essentially the most avid readers of Han’s works.
Interviews with readers of their teenagers and 20s confirmed that for a lot of, Han’s novels marked a turning level of their studying habits.
Notes congratulating Han Kang on her Nobel Prize in literature are displayed subsequent to a Han Kang guide stand at Kyobo Guide Centre in central Seoul. Korea Occasions photograph by Yang Seung-jun
Attuned to rights points
Why are younger readers so drawn to Han’s literature, regardless of not having lived via the historic occasions her books typically painting?
Two causes stand out: the emotional depth and the empathy her works evoke. Many younger readers have reported feeling deeply affected by the uncooked feelings conveyed in her novels.
One reader in her 20s stated, “’The Vegetarian’ didn’t simply really feel like I used to be studying; the troublesome feelings got here via so strongly.” One other remarked that studying “Human Acts” felt like “being stabbed within the chest.”
Although they could not have skilled the historic tragedies depicted in novels like “Human Acts “(set throughout the 1980 democratic rebellion in Gwangju) or “We Do Not Half” (concerning the tragic Jeju 4.3 incident of the late Nineteen Forties and early Fifties), younger readers are notably attuned to problems with human rights and private sacrifice.
As professor Music Ji-eon of Hongik College notes, “In comparison with older generations, right this moment’s youth could have much less direct expertise with historic trauma, however their sensitivity to human rights permits them to empathize deeply with the person struggling and sacrifices proven in Han’s work.”
Novels by Nobel Prize winner Han Kang are displayed on the Nationwide Library of Korea’s Literature Corridor in Seocho District, Seoul. Newsis
Discovering id and solace
For a lot of younger readers, Han’s novels provide a way of validation and luxury. One 23-year-old reader expressed that characters just like the hemophiliac affected person in “The Wind Is Blowing” made her notice, “I nonetheless have humanity.”
One other reader talked about feeling a surrogate sense of motherhood via the character in “Human Acts” who confesses, “I couldn’t maintain your funeral, so my life turned your funeral.”
One notably putting response got here from an 18-year-old reader who recalled the character Dong-ho from “Human Acts,” who dies feeling responsible for not dashing to a pal’s assist after they had been shot. The reader questioned, “Why don’t the ‘adults’ who dedicated these crimes really feel any guilt?”
Professor Kim Heon-sik of Jungwon College defined, “Via the solidarity of struggling that Han Kang portrays, youthful generations are discovering a way of self. This can be a response to the social environment that forces them to develop into desensitized simply to outlive, and it is intensified additional by the looming menace to their existence posed by the AI revolution.”
This text from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Occasions, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Occasions.
