---
title: "Innovative South Korean author Han Kang is worthy of 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature"
description: "This year’s choice for the Nobel Prize in Literature has been praised almost unanimously, unlike previous winners."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "THE CONVERSATION"
author: "Jenni Ramone"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/jenni-ramone/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-11-01-han-kang-innovative-author-worthy-of-nobel-prize-in-literature/"
published: "2024-11-01T15:00:03"
updated: "2024-11-02T13:08:03"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 744
---

# Innovative South Korean author Han Kang is worthy of 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature

> This year’s choice for the Nobel Prize in Literature has been praised almost unanimously, unlike previous winners.

By Jenni Ramone · Published 1 November 2024, 17:00 SAST · Updated 2 November 2024, 15:08 SAST

## Key points
- Innovative South Korean author Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, has been praised almost unanimously, unlike previous winners.
- Han Kang awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, recognized for her "poetic and experimental style" that innovates contemporary prose.
- The Vegetarian, her most influential novel, explores themes of bodily agency and patriarchal control, resonating with the rise of vegetarianism.
- Han is the first South Korean laureate and only the 18th woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in its 121-year history.
- Critics praise her unique ability to connect Korean history with global themes, marking her as a significant voice in modern literature.

## Content

It’s often the case that when poets write novels, they deliver arrestingly vivid and nimble prose. [Han Kang’s](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-10-15-my-novels-explore-human-suffering-nobel-prize-winner-han-kang-writes-with-empathy-for-vulnerable-lives/) The Vegetarian (2007) is a case in point, and it is no doubt the work that was most influential in the Swedish Academy’s decision to award her the [Nobel Prize in Literature](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-10-10-south-koreas-han-kang-wins-2024-nobel-literature-prize/) 2024.

The committee said Han was awarded the prize because her “[poetic and experimental style](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/10/south-koreas-han-kang-wins-2024-nobel-prize-in-literature)” has made her “[an innovator in contemporary prose](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/10/south-koreas-han-kang-wins-2024-nobel-prize-in-literature#:%7E:text=her%20dead%20sister.-,%E2%80%9CShe%20has%20a%20unique%20awareness%20of%20the%20connections%20between%20body,to%20win%20a%20Nobel%20Prize.)”.

Han is the first South Korean writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and, in its history of [121 winners over 117 years](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/all-nobel-prizes-in-literature/), only the 18th woman to win it.

She was born in 1970 in Gwangju and has also been awarded the International Booker Prize (in 2016), as well as several other [high-profile national and international awards](https://www.rcwlitagency.com/authors/kang-han/), including the Prix Médicis Etranger in 2023 for her novel [Impossible Goodbyes](https://www.rcwlitagency.com/books/impossible-goodbyes/).

[The Vegetarian](https://www.rcwlitagency.com/books/the-vegetarian/) is Han’s best-read work. Published in 2007 and translated into English for publication in the UK in 2015 and the US in 2016, its title was apt, as it coincided with a [sudden upsurge](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/10/from-fringe-to-mainstream-how-millions-got-a-taste-for-going-vegan) in people turning to vegetarianism and veganism, particularly in the UK.

Although the novel is not a manifesto for vegetarianism, it does contemplate the impact of becoming vegetarian when everyone around you eats meat. It conveys protagonist Yeong-hye’s struggle to [maintain bodily agency](https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003020875-11/quiet-riot-liz-mayo) in response to her husband’s disgust at her decision (he sees it as disobedience), her brother-in-law’s erotic fascination with it and her father’s violent acts, force-feeding her pork.

The Vegetarian offers an extended insight into patriarchal control of the female body and has been described as an [anticapitalist and ecofeminist revolt](https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003020875-11/quiet-riot-liz-mayo%22%22).

The novel has a three-part structure and both the narrative perspective and voice shift in each section. Yeong-hye is never a first-person narrator in the story of her own body and the decisions she makes about it.

![Han Kang](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/file-20241010-15-gt2dzc.jpg)

#### **Reasons for winning**

This noticeable lack of voice seems to have been relevant to the Nobel Prize. The committee said their decision was motivated by the author’s commitment to conveying “[invisible sets of rules](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/)” and “[the fragility of human life](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/)” through her “[unique awareness of the connections between body and soul](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/)”.

Han’s poetry and short stories are just as innovative and important as her novels, though they are less well known, and their themes more obscure. Her [poetry](https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/two-poems-by-han-kang/) often explores places (walking on the city street), juxtaposed with objects (streetlamps, candles, mirrors) and the fragmented human body (a hand reaching out, fingertips, frozen cheeks, tongues, eyelids).

**Read more:**[‘My novels explore human suffering’: Nobel Prize winner Han Kang writes with empathy for vulnerable lives](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-10-15-my-novels-explore-human-suffering-nobel-prize-winner-han-kang-writes-with-empathy-for-vulnerable-lives/)

The English translation of her latest novel, [We Do Not Part](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451666/we-do-not-part-by-kang-han/9780241600269), will be published in February 2025. We Do Not Part is perhaps more obscure and complex than The Vegetarian, at least in subject matter.

It is the story of a woman named Kyungha, who travels to her friend Inseon’s rural house to care for a pet bird after Inseon is admitted to hospital after a wood-chopping accident. Trapped by a snowstorm, she uncovers letters from the [1948-1949 Jeju massacre](https://www.koreanquarterly.org/tag/jeju-massacre/), in which about 1,000 people were killed.

[YouTube video: "YouTube video player"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxrWN0enQwY)

#### **Reactions to Han’s win**

There has been wide praise for this year’s winner. The Washington Post celebrates the award as offering [potential for other Korean writers](https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/10/10/nobel-prize-literature-han-kang-2024/). [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/10/south-korean-author-han-kang-wins-the-2024-nobel-prize-in-literature), meanwhile, acknowledges Han’s accolades and expands on the committee’s reasons for awarding the prize: her empathy, unique awareness, experimental style and her “metaphorically charged prose”.

The prize for literature is often controversial. [Online communities](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/pf1tev/opinions_on_the_noble_prize_for_literature/) debate the validity of winners and make accusations about the politics of choices.

Some commentators are upset if the author is too obscure, as was the case with Norwegian [Jon Fosse](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/170f169/jon_fosse_2023_nobel_prize_winner_discussion/), who won it in 2023. They are equally upset if the prize is awarded to a figure who is too mainstream, as was the case when [Bob Dylan](https://www.thecollector.com/bob-dylan-nobel-prize-literature/) won it in 2016.

The local specificity of Han’s writing, bringing Korean history and places to a global audience, and the precision of her prose mean that her work is innovative and arresting in both form and content. A worthy winner. **DM**

*First published by*[*The Conversation*](https://theconversation.com/han-kang-innovative-south-korean-author-wins-the-2024-nobel-prize-for-literature-241088)*.*

*Jenni Ramone is an associate professor of postcolonial and global literatures at Nottingham Trent University, England.*

*This story first appeared in our weekly*Daily Maverick 168*newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.*

![Image](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/DM-26102024-001-scaled.jpg)

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