Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 goes to South Korean author Han Kang

South Korean author Han Kang wins Nobel Prize for Literature in 2024 for her intense poetic prose.

South Korean author Han Kang has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2024.

After three days of Nobel prizes honouring work in the sciences, the Nobel Prize 2024 in literature was announced on Thursday (October 10, 2024) by the Nobel Committee at the Swedish Academy. She is the first South Korean writer to win the coveted award.

The Nobel Prize 2024: an interactive guide

The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the South Korean author Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” the Academy said.

Han Kang was born in 1970 in the South Korean city of Gwangju before, at the age of nine, moving with her family to Seoul. She comes from a literary background, her father being a reputed novelist. Alongside her writing, she has also devoted herself to art and music, which is reflected throughout her entire literary production, the Academy’s media statement said.

She began her career in 1993 with the publication of a number of poems in the South Korean magazine Literature and Society. Her prose debut came in 1995 with the short story collection ‘Love of Yeosu’.

Her major international breakthrough came with the novel ‘The Vegetarian’. The three-part novel portrays the violent consequences that ensue when its protagonist Yeong-hye refuses to submit to the norms of food intake. Her decision not to eat meat is met with various, entirely different reactions.