South Korean writer Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on October 10 (Thursday).
Han Kang launched her career in 1993 by publishing five poems in a South Korean literary magazine. The following year, she transitioned into novel writing and released her first short story collection, Love in the Riptide, in 1995. She later started writing longer prose, gaining international recognition with The Vegetarian, a novel about a woman who, after experiencing a dream, decides to stop eating meat, portraying her gradual deterioration. Han Kang received the 2016 International Booker Prize for this work, which was also the first of her works to be translated into English.
The Nobel committee praised her for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” With this honor, Han Kang becomes the 18th female author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which has been awarded 117 times, and the first Korean and Asian woman to achieve this distinction.