Han Kang of South Korea wins literature Nobel Prize

South Korea celebrates author Han Kang's Nobel Prize in literature

Han Kang's 2007 novel 'The Vegetarian' won the International Booker Prize in 2016

(Image credit: Jung Yeon-Je / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

Poet and author Han Kang was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature Thursday, becoming the first South Korean and first Asian woman first to win the prestigious literary honor. Han has earned several awards in South Korea and Europe, and her 2007 novel "The Vegetarian" won the International Booker Prize in 2016, a year after it was translated into English.

Who said what

Han won the Nobel Prize "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life," the Swedish Academy said. "I'm so surprised and honored," Han, 53, said in an interview posted by the Nobel committee. Before yesterday's announcement, "the bookmakers' favorite" was Can Xue, an "avant-garde Chinese writer of category-defying novels," The New York Times said.

South Koreans "reacted with joy and astonishment," The Associated Press said, basking in "national pride about the country's growing cultural influence," including K-pop and the "brutal Netflix survival drama 'Squid Game.'" Lawmakers in Seoul paused multiple hearings to applaud Han's win and President Yoon Suk Yeol cheered her "great achievement" for literature and South Korea. "You converted the painful wounds of our modern history into great literature," Yoon said in a statement.

What next?

Han encouraged new readers of her work to begin with "We Do Not Part," her most recent book. The Norwegian Nobel Committee Friday morning awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, comprised of atomic bomb survivors, "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again."

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.