South Korean author Han Kang wins 2024 Nobel literature prize
The Swedish Academy has made its decision. Han Kang, a writer from South Korea, has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. As mentioned in the citation, the prize was awarded for "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life."
Han Kang, in her works, "confronts historical traumas and, in each of her works, exposes the fragility of human life. She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in a poetic and experimental style, has become an innovator in contemporary prose," can be read in the justification.
She was born in 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea. She graduated in Korean philology from Yonsei University.
Her third novel brought her the greatest popularity. Published in 2007, "The Vegetarian" was translated into many languages and won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.
In Canada, she has published the following books: "I'm Not Saying Goodbye," "The Boy is Coming," and "The White Elegy" (a finalist for the 2018 International Booker Prize). The latter is the most personal novel in the author's oeuvre. It explores mourning, rebirth, and the resilience of the human spirit. Han Kang wrote part of "The White Elegy" during a winter stay in Warsaw.
The history of the Nobel Prize
The Swedish Academy has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1901. Its 18 members include Swedish writers, poets, philologists, and historians.
The Nobel Committee, which this year has six members, works on selecting the laureate. Each year, nominations for the award can be submitted by members of the Swedish Academy and members of other similar institutions, professors of literature and philology, laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and chairpersons of literary associations. The nominations are kept secret and are revealed only fifty years after the prize is awarded.
