The Nobel Prize in Literature marked its 117th presentation on October 10, honoring Han Gang, a South Korean writer. The committee praised his prose as rich and poetic, a voice that confronts historical trauma and reveals the fragility of human life.
“He has a rare talent for linking body and spirit, the living and the dead, and his poetic, experimental approach has helped define a new current in modern prose”, the committee asserted.
The news surprised 53-year-old Han Gang. Mats Malm, a secretary at the Swedish Academy, explained that he informed the author by phone, and the writer seemed taken aback by the call.
“I spoke with Han Gang by phone. He appeared to be having a normal day, having just finished dinner with his son. He wasn’t prepared for this, but the discussion about year-end preparations began right away”, the academy official said. The prize ceremony is set to take place in Stockholm at the end of the year. The Nobel Prize in Literature carries a prize of 11 million Swedish krona, roughly equivalent to about a million US dollars in recent years.
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?
The laureate was born on November 27, 1970 in Gwangju, into a family headed by writer Han Seungwon. He moved to Seoul at the age of ten and pursued Korean literature at Yonsei University. In 1998 he joined the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in the United States.
His writing began to appear publicly in 1993, when five poems appeared in Society and Literature. The following year, his short piece, Red Anchor, won a literary contest.
From an early age, the author was influenced by a line from a Yi San poem: I am sure that people should be plants. The line resonated with him because it speaks to a century when the Korean Peninsula endured Japanese rule, shaping his exploration of identity and society. This sparked the creation of his most acclaimed novel, The Vegetarian. The work was translated into Russian in 2017 and became one of the first of his books to reach English readers, earning him the Booker Prize in 2016.
The Vegetarian follows a woman who seeks to escape violence by cutting meat from her life. It unfolds in three parts around a young woman named Young-ho who discards animal products after a disturbing dream. The pursuit of avoiding death’s horror grows into an obsession that borders on a psychological rupture, and the book presents a Kafkaesque sense of powerlessness in the face of society and state. The novel faced a mixed reception in South Korea when it was released in 2007, seen by some as a bleak, unsettling departure from conventional storytelling.
Another novel, Human Actions, published in 2014, was translated into Russian. It recounts another tragic chapter in South Korea’s history—the 1980 student uprisings in Gwangju, brutally crushed by the government. As a boy, Han Gang found a photo album in his parents’ closet containing images from those events and was horrified by the mutilated bodies and bayonets. Ambassadors of Man narrates the uprising through the perspectives of its many participants.
Han Gang’s latest novel to date is I’m Not Saying Goodbye, released in 2021. It centers on the Jeju Island uprising of 1948 and 1949, when residents protested the peninsula’s division and faced heavy suppression as well.
Who else can receive the award?
Entering the Nobel race, Han Gang was not an obvious favorite. Bookmakers set his odds at 33 to 1, while Chinese writer Can Xue stood out as the favorite with odds around 10 to 1. The 71-year-old author’s work is often described as avant-garde and Kafkaesque, with many autobiographical threads that reflect a difficult childhood during the Cultural Revolution and late 20th-century upheavals. Public sentiment had many predicting a prize for Can Xue in the previous cycle as well.
Among the year’s contenders, Australian writer Gerald Murnane, aged 85, appeared with odds at 12 to 1, reflecting his long-standing reputation as a contemplative voice in European literary circles.
At 14 to 1, Japanese author Haruki Murakami appeared in the mix, gaining attention for his latest work The City and Its Precarious Walls, published in Japan in 2023 at the age of 75.
Other bookmakers’ favorites included Argentinian Cesar Aira, Greek writer Ersi Sotiropoulou, Canadian Margaret Atwood and American Thomas Pynchon, each listed at 16 to 1.