Han Kang hopes that after Nobel Prize for Literature win her ‘life won’t change too much’

Han Kang, South Korea’s first Nobel Literature laureate, says win was a ‘joyful moment’ she ‘quietly celebrated’, but now it’s back to work

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South Korean writer Han Kang, the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in literature, autographs one of her books for a fan at the 18th Pony Chung Innovation Award ceremony in Seoul in 2024. Han called the win a joyful moment but hopes her life will not change too much. Photo: AP/Pool

Published: 12:26pm, 18 Oct 2024

Author Han Kang, the first South Korean to win the Nobel Prize for Literature has said she hopes her daily life will not change too much after her historic honour.

The short story writer and novelist is best known overseas for her Man Booker Prize-winning The Vegetarian, her first novel translated into English.

The 53-year-old, who also became the first Asian woman author to win the Nobel, was chosen “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”, the Swedish Academy said last week.

Winning the Nobel was “a joyful and thankful moment, and I quietly celebrated that night”, she said at an award event in Seoul on October 17.

Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, attends the Pony Chung Innovation Award ceremony, in Seoul, South Korea, on October 17. Photo: EPA-EFE/Pool

Han’s win has created a sensation in South Korea, with the websites of major bookstores and publishing houses crashing after it was announced, as tens of thousands rushed to order her books.

“The past week, filled with so many people sharing in my joy as if it were their own, will be remembered as a special and moving experience for me,” she said.