Han Kang won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Swedish Academy awarded the prize to the South Korean writer for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” Born in Gwangju in 1970, Han Kang writes primarily in Korean and became the first South Korean recipient of the Literature Prize.
Her best-known international breakthrough is The Vegetarian, a novel about a woman whose refusal to eat meat destabilizes her family and exposes social pressure surrounding the body. Human Acts addresses the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, a historical trauma connected to the city where Han Kang was born.
Han Kang began her literary career as a poet in 1993 and later published novels, short stories, and essays. The 2024 award was announced on October 10. Bae Suah, Hwang Sok-yong, and Kyung-sook Shin are also South Korean writers, but none received that Nobel Prize.