The Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 has been awarded to South Korean author Han Kang, "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life."
Han Kang's work uniquely addresses the intersection of body and soul, life and death, blending poetic language with experimental prose. Her stories often explore painful historical events and the invisible societal rules that govern human life.
Born in 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea, and later moving to Seoul, Han Kang grew up in a literary household, with her father being a renowned novelist. Her artistic background also includes a deep involvement in music and art, which influences her literary style.
Han Kang began her literary career in 1993 with poetry published in Literature and Society, and she made her prose debut in 1995. One of her early novels, Your Cold Hands (2002), reflects her fascination with human anatomy and the line between persona and experience, portraying a sculptor obsessed with making plaster casts of female bodies.
Her international breakthrough came with The Vegetarian (2007), a novel that explores the violent reactions of society to a woman’s decision to stop eating meat. The protagonist, Yeong-hye, faces rejection, exploitation, and ultimately mental breakdown as her defiance of societal norms spirals into psychosis.
Other notable works include The Wind Blows, Go (2010), a complex novel about friendship and artistry, and Greek Lessons (2011), which tells the story of a mute woman and her blind teacher, weaving a narrative of love, loss, and the limitations of language.
In Human Acts (2014), Han Kang tackles the 1980 Gwangju massacre, where hundreds of civilians were killed by the South Korean military. The novel captures the trauma and brutality of the event, allowing the dead to narrate their own destruction in a harrowing blend of historical and visionary fiction.
Han Kang’s The White Book (2016) serves as an elegy to her deceased older sister and reflects on loss through a series of meditations on white objects. Described as a "secular prayer book," it combines grief with an introspective exploration of identity.
Her recent work We Do Not Part (2021) deals with another massacre, this time on Jeju Island in the 1940s, portraying the lasting trauma shared by the narrator and her friend. The book examines how personal and collective memory can be transformed into art.
Throughout her body of work, Han Kang explores the physical and emotional dimensions of trauma, often linking her characters' suffering to broader historical or existential themes. Her literary style, marked by both precision and metaphorical depth, continues to push the boundaries of contemporary prose.