Booker win heralds new era

SEOUL: South Korean writer Han Kang’s (pic) Booker prize marks a major victory for a decade-long effort to drag one of Asia’s oldest but, until recently, least-known lite­rary traditions into the global market.

Literary merits aside, the success of Han Kang’s novel Vegetarian was aided by a number of factors that have coincided with South Korea’s emergence as an increasingly prominent player on the global cultural stage.