Context: Recently, the Swedish Academy awarded the 2024 prize to South Korean writer Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. 

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• Han Kang is the first South Korean to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• While awarding the prize, the Academy highlighted that Han Kang's work confronts historical traumas and invisible societal norms, revealing the fragility of human life through a blend of poetic and experimental prose.
• Her writing explores the connections between body and soul, life and death, and demonstrates the power of literature to “speak the truth”.

About Han Kang

• Han Kang, born in 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea, is one of the most prominent contemporary voices in world literature.
• Themes and Style:

             Han Kang is known for her poetic prose, experimental narrative forms, and her exploration of the human body as a site of suffering and resistance.

Notable Works: 

• The Vegetarian (2007): In 2016, it became the first Korean language novel to win the Man Booker International Prize. It tells the story of a woman who decides to stop eating meat, leading to tension and violence within her family. The novel explores themes of resistance, patriarchal control, and the intersection of the body and personal autonomy.
• Human Acts (2014): A powerful narrative centred on the Gwangju massacre of 1980, this novel delves into the brutal suppression of civilian protestors by the South Korean military. It captures the lasting psychological and emotional scars left by such violent events on both survivors and society.
• We Do Not Part (2021): This novel reflects on the Jeju Island Massacre (1948-1954), in which tens of thousands of South Korean civilians were killed during an anti-communist purge.

Some Important Facts Related to Nobel Prize in Literature

• 121 individuals have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1901–2024. 
• The Nobel Prize in Literature has been shared between two laureates on four occasions only in 1904, 1917, 1966 and 1974. However, No one has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.
• Rudyard Kipling is the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, having won the award in 1907 at the age of 41.
• Doris Lessing was the oldest person to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, receiving it at the age of 87 in the year 2007.
• 18 women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940) was the first woman to be awarded in 1909.
• Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian Nobel Laureate and also remains the only Indian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, having won it in 1913.
• He was also the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.