Reading Han Kang, Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature
Photo: Lee Chunhee. Courtesy of Natur & Kultur. The Nobel Prize.
Han Kang was announced today as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2024. She is the first South Korean writer and first Asian woman to win the award. Her body of work includes novels, novellas, essays, poetry, and short stories. Kang's first novel translated into English (and more than 20 other languages), The Vegetarian, was an international breakthrough and won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. Her third novel, The White Book, was shortlisted for the same award just two years later. In awarding the prize, the Nobel committee cited Kang's "intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” She is also frequently credited with elevating the international profile of Korean literature—no more so than with today's announcement which is being proudly celebrated in South Korea.
Four of Kang's novels have been translated into English (all available to borrow with a library card) and a fifth, We Do Not Part, will be published in the U.S. in January, 2025. In 2114, a book Kang has contributed to the Future Library project will finally be printed.
The Vegetarian
translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith
Deciding to go vegetarian in the wake of violent thoughts, Yeong-hye, a woman from an Asian culture of strict societal mores, is denounced as a subversive as she spirals into extreme rebelliousness that causes her to splinter from her true nature and risk her life.
Greek Lessons
translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won
A young Korean woman losing her ability to speak befriends a Greek language teacher who is losing his sight, and soon they discover they have even more in common.
Human Acts
translated by Deborah Smith
Follows the aftermath of a young boy's shocking death during a violent student uprising as told from the perspectives of the event's victims and their loved ones.
The White Book
translated by Deborah Smith
A lyrical exploration of personal grief, conveyed through the prism of the color white, finds a nameless writer grappling with a haunting family tragedy involving the infancy death of her older sister.
You might also like: Ride the K-Wave: Recent Korean Translated Fiction
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.