The Nobel Prize is considered the world’s most prestigious award for writing. Kang is the first Asian woman to win the award.
Han Kang of South Korea has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature. The Swedish Academy noted her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
Kang, 53, has been publishing to critical acclaim in her native country since 1995. She achieved greater international recognition for The Vegetarian. Originally published in 2007, it was first published in English in 2015 and went on to win the International Man Booker Prize.
Her novels often feature female protagonists feeling isolated or at odds with South Korea’s rigid social norms.
Kang is the first Asian woman to win the award. She is also only the second Korean Nobel laureate after former President Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his activism.
She follows Norwegian author Jon Fosse, a beloved playwright known for his avant-garde style.
