[비즈한국] Novelist Han Kang (54) has become the first Korean to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. It marks the second time a Korean has received a Nobel Prize, following former President Kim Dae-jung’s Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.
The Swedish Academy announced on the 10th (local time) that Han Kang was the recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. The academy cited her "intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life" as the reason for the selection.
Born in Gwangju in 1970, Han Kang made her literary debut with poetry in 1993, followed by her debut in fiction in 1994. She gained widespread domestic and international recognition with her 2007 novel "The Vegetarian" and won the International Booker Prize in 2016. In 2023, she received the Prix Médicis étranger, one of France’s four major literary awards, for her novel "We Do Not Part," and earlier this year, she was awarded the Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature in France. She is the daughter of novelist Han Seung-won.
The Nobel Prize ceremony is held annually on December 10 in Stockholm, Sweden (for Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, and Economic Sciences) and Oslo, Norway (for Peace). Laureates receive 11 million kronor (approximately 1.34 billion won) in prize money, along with a medal and a diploma. The winner of the Peace Prize is scheduled to be announced on the 11th, and the winner of the Prize in Economic Sciences on the 14th.