Han Kang's Nobel spurs hope of global recognition for Korean literature

FILE PHOTO: South Korean author Han Kang, the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, attends a press conference, in Seoul, South Korea, in this photo taken on November 14, 2023. Yonhap via REUTERS/File Photo

SEOUL (Reuters) - Han Kang, South Korea's first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was slow to secure global acclaim, getting her first big international prize nine years after her best-known novel was published, once it had finally been translated into English.

The long wait for the translation of "The Vegetarian", which won the 2016 Man Booker International prize, seemed to prove the observation of Han's father, himself an award-winning novelist, that it was the kind of book that "goes straight into the drawer".