Han Kang Chronicler of sorrows

South Korean author Han Kang speaks to the media during a press conference in Seoul, South Korea. | Photo Credit: AP

In a time of two wars and a lack of responsibility, it is no surprise that the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2024 has been awarded to the South Korean writer Han Kang. Despite his “surprise” at the unexpected award – the Chinese avant-garde writer Can Xue is thought to have won – Han Kang’s work is perfectly placed to depict situations in life that lack reason or logic.

At least two of his novels, translated into English, use the massacre of civilians and unarmed protesters as a backdrop, to ensure that these crimes are remembered and not remain a hidden chapter in history. The Swedish Academy praised the 53-year-old author “for his powerful poetic prose that confronts the trauma of history and exposes the complexity of human life”.

Bewildered by the question – ‘What does it mean to be human?’ – Han Kang has explored this existential question in novel after novel, taking the complex arc of human behavior from acts of horror to moments of kindness. “Innovator in contemporary prose” has a poetic and experimental style, some would say radical, to convey anxiety, about women and their struggle to overcome the patriarchal mindset, authoritarianism, violent putdowns, the environment, relationships and social injustice.

In a short interview after the prize, Han Kang told Swedish Academy official Jenny Rydén that readers who come across his work should start with the 2021 novel. We Are Not Separated. The English translation is scheduled for an early release in 2025 and revolves around the friendship of two women during the 1948 massacre on Jeju Island.

Past and present

He mentions another novel Human actionwhich uses the 1980 massacre in Gwangju, where Han Kang was born, as a backdrop to tell the story of the past about the present. The words of the academy that “he had a unique awareness of the relationship between the body and the soul, the living and the dead…” is nowhere clearer than in human action, where the soul of the slain student yearns to see the face of his killers, “hovering above his sleeping eyelids like an infiltrating fire, entering his dreams… until he hears my voice asking, demanding, why”.

The third novel that readers want is a “personal, autobiographical” novel, The White Book“an elegy” in sorrow, about his sister who died after living only a few hours. He rounded off by talking about his most famous novel, The Vegetarianwho won the Man Booker International Prize 2016, and translated other works. Elaborated into a three-part novel from a short story, My Womanit was first published in Korea in 2007, and found readers in English when it was translated by Deborah Smith in 2015.

The protagonist, Yeong-hye, gives up eating meat, with devastating consequences. There is violent pushback from her husband, and other family members, although Yeong-hye seeks solace in the plant world because the people around her don’t understand her. In his work, there is a correspondence between mental and physical torture related to eastern thought, Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee, noted.

For the past few years, Korean literature has been riding on Hello or the Korean wave with the world Falling in love with all the country offers, from music, cinema, television drama to food. Singers like Psy (‘Gangnam Style’, 2012) and bands, including BTS, are household names around the world. In the last three years, several authors – Hwang Sok-yong (Material 2-10translated from Korean by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae), Cheon Myeong-kwan (popetranslated by Chi-Young Kim), Bora Chung (The rabbit is cursedtranslated by Anton Hur) – is already on the Booker list.

In a post-Nobel Prize interview, Han Kang said he hoped the news would be “good” for Korean literary readers. News agencies reported that Koreans flocked to bookstores to buy his books after the win; a phenomenon that will surely be replicated around the world.

Reuters quoted his father, novelist Han Seung-won, said that the translation of his novel The Vegetarian has led to him winning, first the Man Booker International Prize and now the Nobel Prize. “My daughter’s writing is very soft, beautiful and sad,” said Han Seung-won.

The world is waiting to discover more of Han Kang’s oeuvre. He is so concerned about the human condition that he does not celebrate victory when people die in battle.