The Nobel Literature Committee awarded the award for the 117th time on October 10. The winner of the award was South Korean writer Han Gang. The committee’s statement praised his “rich, poetic prose that confronts historical trauma and reveals the fragility of human life.”
“He has a unique ability to recognize the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and has become an innovator in the field of modern prose with his poetic, experimental style,” the statement emphasizes.
The news of the award surprised 53-year-old Han Gang. Mats Malm, secretary of the Swedish Academy, told The Guardian that he told him the news about the award by phone and that the writer was quite surprised by this call.
“I had the honor of speaking with Han Gang on the phone. He looked like he was having a normal day; He had just finished dinner with his son. He was not ready for this, but we started discussing preparations for December,” said the academy secretary. At the end of the year, the award ceremony will be presented in Stockholm. In 2024, the Nobel Prize in Literature was worth 11 million Swedish krona (just over $1 million).
Han Gang became the first South Korean writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and the 18th woman to be awarded by the Academy.
What does Han Gan write about?
Han Gan’s books at the Swedish Academy
Tom Small/Reuters
The laureate was born on November 27, 1970 in the city of Gwangju in the family of writer Han Seungwon. He moved to Seoul when he was 10 years old. Han Gang received his higher education at Yonsei University, where he studied Korean literature. In 1998, he enrolled in the international writing program of the University of Iowa in the United States.
Han Gang’s writing career began in 1993, when five of his poems were published in Society and Literature magazine. The following year, his story “Red Anchor” won a literary contest.
Even in his youth, the author was deeply influenced by a line in a poem by the South Korean poet Yi San: “I am sure that people should be plants.” Han Gang saw references to the early 20th century period when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese rule. This inspired the author to write his most successful novel to date, “The Vegetarian” (a Russian translation was published in 2017). This work was also one of the first to be translated into English – in 2016, “The Vegetarian” brought the author the Booker Prize.
The novel, about a woman who wants to avoid all kinds of violence and becomes a vegetarian, was called scandalous. This is the three-part story of a girl named Younghe who throws out all the animal products in her refrigerator due to a nightmare. The desire to avoid the horror of death becomes obsessive and borders on psychosis; The novel spreads a Kafkaesque feeling of helplessness and horror in the face of society and the state. Meanwhile, it was not popular in South Korea either. Written in 2007, the work seemed to citizens a gloomy story of a crazy woman who gave up meat, leaving no genius untouched.
Another novel of the author, Human Actions, written in 2014, was translated into Russian. It tells the story of another tragic chapter in South Korean history: the student revolts in Gwangju in 1980 that were brutally suppressed by the government. When he was 12 years old, Han Gang discovered a photo album in his parents’ closet containing photographs taken during these events, and was horrified to see the mutilated bodies pierced with bayonets. “Ambassadors of Man” is the story of this uprising, told on behalf of the various participants.
Han Gang’s latest novel to date is “I’m Not Saying Goodbye”, released in 2021. This work is dedicated to the uprising on Jeju Island in 1948 and 1949, when residents protested the division of the peninsula into northern and southern parts. He too was brutally suppressed.
Who else can receive the award?
Han Gang was not an obvious candidate for the Nobel Prize: he was listed at odds of 33/1 among bookmakers. Chinese writer Can Xue was considered the favorite in the race; He topped the list of contestants with odds of 10/1. The 71-year-old author’s work, full of gloomy Kafkaesque motifs, is classified as an avant-garde movement, unlike the realism of modern Chinese writers. Many of his works are largely autobiographical stories, reflecting a difficult childhood during the Cultural Revolution and the Campaign Against Mao Zedong’s Right-wing Elements. By the way, everyone predicted that he would receive the Nobel Prize last year.
Among the bookmakers’ favorites this year was 85-year-old Australian writer, poet and essayist Gerald Murnane, known for his novel The Plains. He has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature numerous times and this time the bettor’s odds were 12/1.
With odds of 14/1, the contestants included Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who turns 75 this year. The latest novel of the author of “Sheep Hunting” and “Norwegian Forest” is called “The City and Its Precarious Walls” and was published in Japan in 2023.
Bookmakers’ favorites included Argentinian Cesar Aira, Greek writer Ersi Sotiropoulou, Canadian Margaret Atwood and American Thomas Pynchon (each with odds of 16/1).
What are you thinking?
Source: Gazeta
Brandon Hall is an author at “Social Bites”. He is a cultural aficionado who writes about the latest news and developments in the world of art, literature, music, and more. With a passion for the arts and a deep understanding of cultural trends, Brandon provides engaging and thought-provoking articles that keep his readers informed and up-to-date on the latest happenings in the cultural world.