Oct 10, 2024
Aakanksha Sharma
Nobel Laureate 2024
The Nobel Prize for Literature was announced on October 10, 2024, and the winner this year is Han Kang, a South Korean author, famous for her novel ‘The Vegetarian’. Here we mention 10 facts about Kang, her writing, themes, and prose.
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The prize motivation
The Nobel Committee noted that Han Kang received the Nobel Prize for Literature “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
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A literary family
Han Kang is the daughter of Han Seung-won, a famous South Korean novelist, and her brother Han Dong Rim is also a well-known author.
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Starting a ‘legacy’
Han Kang has now become the first South Korean to win the prize, and the 18th female Nobel Laureate. Many people are now hailing her as the start of a legacy in South Korean literature.
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Her early career
Han Kang’s early works came in the form of poems and collections in 1993. Her poems were published in the magazine ‘Literature and Society’, but it wasn’t until her first novel that she became a big part of the literary scene.
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The famous novel
Kang’s debut prose was published in 1995, and it was a short story collection titled ‘Love of Yeosu’.
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A handwritten novel
In an old interview with Seoul ABC book club, Han shared that she wrote ‘The Vegetarian’ with her hands as she had injured her wrist by typing too much.
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The international acclaim
Han Kang’s international acclaim came with the novel ‘The Vegetarian’, which was translated into English by Deborah Smith in 2015. It was a three-part novel about the violent consequences that ensue when a woman refuses to submit to the norms of food intake.
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The first major prize
Before becoming the first South Korean Nobel Laureate, Han Kan and Smith won the International Booker Prize for fiction in 2016.
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Other awards
Han Kang has also received several awards in South Korea and is an important part of the South Korean literary scene. She has won the Korean Fiction Award, the Yi Sang Literary Award Grand Prize, the Dong-in Literary Award, the Ho-Am Prize, and many more.
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Other works
Her other major works include – ‘Human Acts: A Novel’, ‘The White Book’, ‘I Do Not Bid Farewell’, ‘Greek Lessons’, and ‘We Do Not Part’, a novel that will be released in 2025.
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