Novelist Han Kang Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

[Anchor]
Korean novelist Han Kang has been selected for this year's Nobel Prize in Literature.

It is the first time for a Korean writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and the second Korean Nobel Prize after former President Kim Dae Jung's Nobel Peace Prize.

I'm connecting with the reporter. Reporter Park Soon Pyo!

You are the greatest scholar of Korean literature, and novelist Han Kang was chosen as the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature, right?

[Reporter]
Yes. That's right. Korean novelist Han Kang has been chosen as the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Swedish Nobel Committee revealed the reason for the selection of Han Kang's work, saying, "It is an intense poetic prose that faces historical trauma and reveals the fragility of human life."

This is the first time for a Korean writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

It is also the second time that a Korean has won a Nobel Prize after the late former President Kim Dae Jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.

The winner will be awarded 11 million krona in prize money, 1.34 billion won in Korean money, medals, and certificates.

[Anchor]
Can you tell us what kind of writer Han Kang is?

[Reporter]
Born in 1970 in Gwangju Metropolitan City, novelist Han Kang majored in Korean literature at Yonsei University,

In 1993, he made his debut as a poet while publishing four poems including [Winter in Seoul] in the Winter issue.

The following year, in 1994, he took his first step as a novelist when the novel [Red Anchor] was elected in the New Year Literature of the Seoul Newspaper.

After publishing her first novel collection [Yeo Su's Love] in 1995, she quit her job and began to focus on her writing career as a full-time writer.

Since 2007, I have taught students in the department of literary creation at Seoul National University of the Arts.

The work that popularized the novelist Han Kang is the 2005 Lee Sang Literary Award-winning novel [Mongo Banjeom].

At that time, the Lee Sang Literary Award-winning committee selected Han Kang as the winner as a young writer born in the 1970s, explaining the reason for the award, saying that unlike other young writers, a deep world perception is revealed in serious sentences.

In addition, literature critic Professor Lee Eo-ryeong said, "Han Kang's [Mongo reflection] shows another level of fun in reading novels with high-level symbolism and excellent sentence power despite its bizarre subject matter, unusual character setting, and complex story development."

In particular, following his father, novelist Han Seung-won, a father and daughter won the Ideal Literature Award at the same time.

Novelist Han Kang, who established himself as a leader in the next generation of Korean novels early on, has since attracted attention from the world literature community by releasing steady works.

In particular, he gained international fame in May 2016, when he was selected as the winner of the International Booker Prize, one of the world's top three literary awards, along with the Nobel Prize for Literature as a novelist and vegetarian.

Following the Booker Prize, novelist Han Kang was selected as the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature, and she is considered the most well-known writer in the world literature.

It is also expected to serve as an opportunity for Korean literature to be reevaluated in the world literature community led by British and American writers.

I'm Park Soonpyo of YTN from the Ministry of Culture.