In 2024, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to South Korean writer Han Gang “for his intense poetic prose that confronts historical trauma and reveals the fragility of human life.”
As a rule, the winners of this prize are predicted according to the predictions of the bookmakers; This type of betting also exists to predict the Nobel Prize. Haruki Murakami and Salman Rushdie have been on the bookmakers’ list for many years; As we know, neither one nor the other received a bonus and perhaps never will. This year’s leaders were a few Australian writers whose names will probably mean nothing to you or me. Bettors and forecasters had high hopes for them, but the committee turned its face to South Korea.
It should be noted that in the modern literary world, Han Gan is far from the last writer both in terms of recognition and the number of objectively significant merits. For example, it was awarded the International Booker Prize in 2016. Two of his novels, “The Vegetarian” and “Human Actions”, were translated into Russian.
“Vegetarian” is the story of a girl who wants to be a vegetarian but is forced to eat meat. Of course, everything is a little more complicated. A girl has a traumatic dream about animals dying in a slaughterhouse and decides to give up meat. Her whole family perceives this as a neurotic disorder, the girl is hospitalized, where she begins to identify with a tree and gradually turns into it. All characters in the novel in one way or another suffer from mental disorders, from post-traumatic syndrome to suicidal tendencies.
Another novel, Human Affairs, is about a boy who witnesses the tragic Gwangju uprising of 1980. This uprising was considered a communist provocation until 1988, and then, on the contrary, it was considered a struggle for democracy by the masses. During the suppression of the uprising, government forces killed at least a thousand South Korean citizens. A boy named Kang Dong-ho is sorting the corpses in a school equipped for this and sees something like this: “You see numerous bayonet wounds on the girl’s face, from her forehead to her left eye, on her cheekbones and chin, on her left bare chest and on the side. It appears that the right side of the skull was hit with a truncheon; The brain can be seen inside the hole. Open wounds rot faster. Following these, some parts of the body rot and bruises and bruises appear.
Admittedly, the Nobel committee’s formulation is this time more precise than ever; Historical traumas and the fragility and contrast of human life are clearly present in Han Gang’s novels.
Now, of course, people interested in literature – and I count among them – will rush to say that they have known this author for a long time and that his books are still available in some stores, you should definitely buy them. But is this really necessary for a person who asks a simple and eternal question: “What to read?”
In recent years, the Nobel Prize has followed the fading trend of globalization and is trying in every possible way to prove that literature is not only what was created by European civilization, but also the original Asia and Africa in the future. Quite possible, but we see that it was precisely the prize awarded in Stockholm that made these novels appeal to a wide English-speaking, traditionally European readership. Bunin, Galsworthy, Eliot, Hemingway, Camus and even Churchill – yes, he is also a literary laureate – we would probably know even without the awards. But Mo Yan, a Chinese novelist in the spirit of absurdist grotesquery and hallucinatory realism, is unlikely.
To what extent does a modern person who has not yet read all of Dostoevsky need to ask questions about the psychological trauma of South Korean youth? There’s provocative exaggeration about this, but I’m sure there’s also common sense. It lies in the fact that whatever the future perspectives are – perhaps the world literary community will turn to the literary monuments of African tribes or the new Nobel Prize winners will be completely inaccessible to us – we will always have something to read. The body of classical texts tends toward infinity.
On the other hand, it always makes sense to pay attention to new awardees, even if they seem a little exotic to you, because this knowledge somehow expands your horizons. How many of us remembered or even knew about the Gwangju Uprising? And this is the most important event in the modern history of South Korea, showing us both the potential tyranny of power and the relativity of looking to the historical past.
Just remember that the Nobel Prize is awarded every year and not every award will remain in literary history. Even though what we wish for is Han Gan.
Everyone already knows Haruki Murakami and Salman Rushdie.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.