South Korea’s Han Kang wins 2024 Nobel prize in literature – follow live | Books

Lucy Knight

There is one book by Han Kang that even the Swedish academy won’t have been able to read yet: in 2019 Han became the fifth writer to have been chosen for Scottish artist Katie Paterson’s Future Library art project. Paterson asks one writer a year to contribute a manuscript on the themes of imagination and time, which are then stored in a specially designed room in a forest in Oslo. In 2114, 100 years after the project’s launch, its curators will cut down the 1,000 Norwegian spruces that were planted in 2014, and print the texts – unseen by anyone until then – for the first time.

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It’s exciting that Han’s win will bring even more readers to South Korean literature. Could K-lit be the new K-pop?!

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Which books shape a Nobel laureate? Read about the books that have been important to Han Kang here:

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“Thank goodness Han Kang’s literary voice takes up space in the world in the way her female characters struggle to,” wrote Em Strang in her review of Han’s most recent novel to have been translated into English, Greek Lessons. Read the full review here:

Who is Han Kang?

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Han, the daughter of novelist Han Seung-won, is the first writer from South Korea to be awarded the Nobel prize in literature. Her debut book, the short story collection A Love of Yeosu, was published in 1995, followed by a number of novels and novellas. In 2007 she published The Vegetarian, the English translation of which won her the Man Booker International prize for fiction in 2016. The allegorical novel tells the story of a woman’s decision to stop eating meat and its devastating consequences. The author has won a clutch of awards for her work, including the Yi Sang literary prize, Today’s Young Artist award, and the Korean Literature Novel award. The Korean edition of her most recent novel, We Do Not Part, has been well received, and will be available in English translation by e yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris in February.

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In conversations about who might win the Nobel this year, the general consensus was that Han Kang was too young – she is 53. However, Han is not the youngest author to be awarded the Nobel: Rudyard Kipling is the youngest person to win the Nobel prize in literature, receiving the award in 1907 at the age of 41.

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Olsson says Han’s work has “a broad span in terms of genre”, and praises her “metaphorically charged prose”.

“In her oeuvre, 2024 literature laureate Han Kang confronts historical traumas and invisible sets of rules and, in each of her works, exposes the fragility of human life,” he adds. “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.”

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Read Claire Armitstead’s 2016 interview with Han Kang, in which she talks about her acclaimed novel The Vegetarian

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Malm was able to talk to Han Kang on the phone, he said. She was having an ordinary day and had “just finished supper with her son” when he broke the news to her.

And the winner is Han Kang

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The South Korean writer has been announced as the latest Nobel laureate in literature

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We’re very close to knowing this year’s Nobel prize in literature winner! Mats Malm, the permanent secretary of the Nobel committee, will soon take the stage to announce this year’s prize, before Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, awards the prize.

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The Nobel prize live video has just shared the fact that Doris Lessing is the oldest winner of the literature prize to date – the perfect opportunity to share her iconic reaction video

The livestream has started

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Not long to wait now! You can watch along here: