SEOUL: South Korean author Han Kang (pic) has won this year's Nobel Prize in literature, becoming the first South Korean to be honoured with one of the world's most prestigious literary awards.
The Swedish Academy's Nobel Committee announced the winner on Thursday (Oct 10) in Stockholm.
Han was recognised “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” said Mats Malm, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy.
Han became the 121st laureate of the prestigious award and the 18th woman to receive the illustrious prize.
Her win marks a historic moment for South Korea, 24 years after then-President Kim Dae-jung was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.
Han has garnered global recognition for her powerful exploration of suffering and resilience, winning the International Booker Prize in 2016 for "The Vegetarian," which was also a first for a Korean.
Her other notable works include "Human Acts," a finalist for the Booker Prize in 2018, and "I Do Not Bid Farewell" (2021), which earned her France’s Prix Medicis for foreign literature last year.
The Nobel Prize in literature, awarded annually by the Swedish Academy, comes with a prize of 11 million Swedish krona (US$1.06 million) in recognition of the writer’s outstanding body of work. - The Korea Herald/ANN
