Han Kang has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. The 53-year-old South Korean won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016 for The Vegetarian.
“Kang confronts historical traumas and invisible sets of rules and, in each of her works, exposes the fragility of human life,” the judges said. “She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in her poetic and experimental style has become an innovator in contemporary prose.”
Han becomes only the 18th woman of the 120 literature laureates since 1901, and the first South Korean winner. The prize, considered the most prestigious literary prize in the world, is worth 11 million Swedish krona (€967,470). Despite her success to date, much of her work has yet to be translated into English – that will surely change.
Han won international acclaim with the translation into English of The Vegetarian. It was the first novel to win the Man Booker International prize when it switched from recognising bodies of work to rewarding individual novels in 2016. It is an imaginative three-part novel in which a woman who rejects the norms of her society faces intense pressure to conform. She is abused, ostracised, force-fed and hospitalised. It addresses the thread of violence that runs through a society’s conventions and the devastating toll on individuals. It is a highly original work, and a good place to start for anyone new to Han’s writing.
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We had sex maybe once a month. The constant rejection was soul-crushing, it felt like my ex didn’t even like me
The translation, by first-time translator Deborah Smith, was criticised by some for its creative licence, but Han spoke highly of their collaborative process. Smith used some of the proceeds from the Booker win (the prize is shared between writer and translator) to set up the innovative independent press for translated fiction, Tilted Axis.
The book was followed, in English, by Human Acts, based on the student-led Gwanju Uprising in 1980, which was a response to a coup d’etat and the imposition of martial law. Again translated by Smith, it is a powerful novel in which a relay of narrators recount the lead-up to the demonstrations, the violent oppression by the authorities and the traumatic legacy.
The next book to be translated further underlined not only Han’s versatility, but also her delicate poetic sensibility. The White Book is a short novel, with fragmented reflections on death and grief. Written during a residency in Warsaw, the cold winter and the Cold War form a backdrop creating a monochrome simplicity for these painterly meditations on loss. Again translated by Smith, the book was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and is highly respected. The artistic confidence of Han in writing something so delicate and fleeting speaks to her assurance as an artist.
It is a quirk of fiction in translation that novels are often translated out of sequence. The most recently translated work is Greek Lessons, a novel about the relationship between a thirtysomething woman who has lost her ability to speak and the teacher in her Ancient Greek class, who is going blind. It is a novel that contains elements of both The Vegetarian and The White Book, and while there is much to admire, it is perhaps best viewed as capturing Han in a transition stage.
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As an artist, Han has demonstrated a deep commitment to exploring the injustice that flows through the experience of the individual in society, and through society itself. Her gaze is steady and clear – this is not an author given to melodrama or pat morality. Her writing is nuanced, supple and precise. In Han the Nobel committee has given deserved recognition to a courageous and gifted writer whose work has truly global resonance.
Rónán Hession reviews translated fiction regularly for The Irish Times. His latest novel is Ghost Mountain
