South Korean Nobel Laureate Han Kang: ‘Life is a wound’

The first Asian woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature has written eight novels, published three short story collections, and penned a wealth of poetry. Who is she—and what does she write about?

Al Majalla

Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature

South Korean Nobel Laureate Han Kang: ‘Life is a wound’

Emad al-Ahmad

last update on 16 Oct 2024

South Korean writer Han Kang has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The judges praised her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” With eight novels under her belt, plus three short story collections and a poetry portfolio, Han Kang is now the 18th woman—and the first Asian woman—to receive literature’s highest accolade.

Writer Anna Karin Palm, a member of the Swedish Academy that awards the prizes, praised Han Kang’s body of work as “a very rich and complex oeuvre that spans many genres”. She highlighted Han’s prose as “both tender and brutal, and at times slightly surreal,” emphasising that while her themes are consistent, the remarkable stylistic diversity of her writing makes each of her books a new revelation, offering fresh expressions of her core ideas.

Initial publications

Born on 27 November 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea’s sixth-largest city, she studied Korean literature at Yonsei University in Seoul and published five poems in the 1993 issue of the journal Literature and Society. In 1994, she gained recognition by winning the Spring Literary Competition for Young Writers for her short story The Red Anchor. This is a significant milestone for emerging authors in Korea, judged by the country’s leading newspapers.

Following this achievement, she released her first collection of short stories, titled Love. Her subsequent collection, Love in Yeosu, was published in 1995. This saw her revisiting her youth, evoking the enchanting coastal town of Yeosu through reflections on love, melancholy, the inherent sadness of life, and a tragic vision of the world. A South Korean literary critic called her “the youngest classic writer of our era”.

In a 2020 interview with the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Han Kang described the presence of books in her childhood, saying: “Books were like a creature that expanded around me day after day, week after week, month after month.” Her early years were defined by simplicity—her father was a struggling novelist, and the family had few possessions. Frequently moving house and school, books became her constant and her refuge.

AFP — Han Kang, winner of the Man Booker International Prize, during a press conference in Seoul, May 24, 2016.

Black Deer (1998)

Han Kang’s first full-length novel, Black Deer, published in both Korean and Chinese, is one of the most significant literary achievements of the 1990s. Set in the village of Yunichul, it draws upon the ancient Chinese myth of the mystical black deer who dwells deep underground, yearning to rise to the earth’s surface and feel the sun’s warmth, only to melt when touched by sunlight.

Critics hailed it for its seamless narrative structure and evocative symbolism, adding that it captured the essence of its era. Its precise details, unbroken narrative flow, powerful imagery and existential depth resonated with readers, too. One phrase that stood out is: “Life is a wound.”

Your Cold Hands (2002)

Han Kang then released her second novel, Your Cold Hands, a transformative work that she claimed: “changed my eyes and ears, changed the way I love, and quietly and silently led my soul to a pristine place I had never set foot in before”.

The novel tells the story of a sculptor obsessed with creating plaster casts of women’s bodies who writes about his fixation. In Han Kang’s hands, this becomes a profound exploration of life’s hardships, examining pain, obsession, and the complexities of the human soul.

The Vegetarian (2007)

Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize, Han Kang’s The Vegetarian was her first to be translated into English. It begins with a husband saying: “Before my wife became a vegetarian, she was a completely normal person in every way.”

The protagonist, Yeong-hye, initially a dutiful and compliant wife, is tormented by recurring nightmares that lead her to renounce meat entirely. This seems irrational to those around her and stuns her husband, who responds with cruel attempts to coerce her back. Her authoritarian father also intervenes, trying to force her to abandon her newfound resolve. Pressure mounts, and her resistance culminates in a desperate act of defiance: attempted suicide. She is eventually hospitalised.

Han Kang's early years were defined by simplicity. Frequently moving house and school, books became her constant and her refuge

The novel then shifts to the perspective of her brother-in-law (her sister's husband), a painter captivated by Yeong-hye's transformation. She becomes the muse for his increasingly erotic and tumultuous artistic visions and unsettling fantasies.

Finally, the novel is narrated by Yeong-hye's sister, who reflects on the disintegration of their family and her own failed marriage, grappling with feelings of guilt and responsibility for Yeong-hye's unravelling. Throughout, Yeong-hye's urge to break free from the confines of her physical self is poignantly revealed as she yearns to transcend her human form and become a tree.

The Wind Blows, Go! (2010)

Her next novel, The Wind Blows, Go! took more than four years to complete. In it, she explores the enigmatic death of a gifted painter sustained by a ventilator while lingering on the precipice of life. "I wanted to write a novel that breaks the form of the novel itself while still embodying its essence," she said of her creation. The book deals with the origin of life, the complexities of understanding and loving others, our darker desires, the reconstruction of memories, and the will to survive.

Greek Lessons (2011)

In her subsequent novel Greek Lessons, Han Kang masterfully explores the delicacy of love, the depth of human connection, and the nature of intimacy, in a story that centres on a young woman in Seoul who loses her ability to speak in front of her Greek language teacher. As the teacher becomes captivated by her silent presence, he gradually discovers that he, too, is losing his sight. This draws them together in a shared experience of vulnerability and loss.

Alongside the woman's anguish over the loss of her mother and the custody of her nine-year-old son, the teacher grapples with the fragmentation of his identity between two cultures and two languages as the light slowly fades from his eyes.

A critic described Kang's prose as "rising from the charred rubble of language that we thought had been burned to the ground... Then we suddenly realise that to confront the true desires our bodies remember, we must go down to writing zero degree".

Human Acts (2014)

Building on this idea of starting anew, Han Kang revisits her haunting memories of the 1980 student-led uprising in Gwangju and its brutal suppression, in Human Acts. More than 100 people were killed protesting a military coup.

The book follows a young man searching for his friend's body in a country caught in the throes of oppression. It paints a touching picture of a nation striving to find its voice and of a generation longing to rediscover its identity. Through its nuanced narrative, Human Acts intertwines the fates of the living and the dead, illustrating how trauma perpetuates across generations, serving as a counterforce to the ruthless pursuit of power. It was translated into Arabic in 2020.

JUNG YEON-JE / REUTERS — Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, at a press conference in South Korea, 2016.

The White Book (2016)

In The White Book, shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize, Han Kang explores memory, loss, and time through 65 white objects. Translated into Arabic in 2019, it takes readers to Warsaw—a city with a violent history and layers of trauma. As she navigates the city, Kang's thoughts turn to a personal loss, that of her older sister, who died just two hours after birth.

A reflective and poetic journey is then undertaken by exploring all the white elements around her, from doors and snow to fabrics, clothes, salt, the moon, even a mother's breast milk.

"All those hours when she lost her way and fell into a vortex of indecision and doubt, how many were they?" she asks. "How many of those little white pills?"

Woven together, this is a meditation on grief, memory, and the resilience of the human spirit through 65 lyrical vignettes, a mesmerising tapestry of associations.

I Don't Say Goodbye (2021)

In I Don't Say Goodbye, Han Kang once again explores memory, history, love, friendship, and pain, in a story that begins with Insoon lying in a hospital bed after she severed two fingers with a wood chipper.

She asks her friend Jeongha—who she hasn't seen for over a year—to travel to her remote island home to care for her bird, who was left behind in the rush to hospital. Jeongha then braves a fierce storm to reach Insoon's house.

Once there, she uncovers a hidden trove of documents and papers bearing witness to one of Korea's darkest chapters—the Jeju Uprising of 1948-1949, during which more than 30,000 civilians were brutally killed under accusations of communism.

Through this discovery, the novel poignantly intertwines personal suffering with the collective grief of a nation, exploring how the echoes of past violence reverberate through individual lives and memories.

A critic described Kang's prose as "rising from the charred rubble of language that we thought had been burned to the ground"

Short story collections

Han Kang's second short story collection, The Fruit of My Woman (2000), features eight poetic tales that explore themes of love, loss, and transformation.

The title story tells of a woman who once dreamt of venturing to the farthest reaches of the world but ultimately resigns herself to marriage, seeking stability and accepting love as her ultimate form of happiness.

When life with her husband becomes unbearable and escape seems impossible, she undergoes a surreal transformation into a plant, gazing upward from her balcony, yearning to touch the ceiling. This vividly encapsulates the tension between aspiration and confinement, longing and resignation.

The stories vary in their scope and intensity. One tells of a delivery man who falls in love with a woman on his route, while another tells of the impossibility of love between a couple scarred both physically and emotionally.

A standout story—What Do Dogs Feel When the Sun Goes Down—follows a young boy and his unemployed father searching for the boy's runaway mother. Their journey culminates in a heart-wrenching moment of profound despair and hopelessness, where the boy watches his father try to feed him poisoned bread.

The collection concludes with In the Red Flower, where Han Kang delves into Buddhist philosophies, exploring existential themes through a spiritual lens.

In her third short story collection, The Fire Salamander (2012), she presents seven stories crafted over seven months and later published over 12 years, before being assembled into this volume. In it, she examines the origins of existence, the nature of pain, and its profound effects on the human psyche.

Han Kang's characters come with a layer of existential armour around their souls that allows them to confront life's harsh realities. Likewise, he stories invite readers to reflect on the fundamental struggles of the human condition through her signature blend of poetic insight and raw, evocative storytelling.

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