South Korean Han Kang, known for his vegetarian novel, received the Nobel Prize in literature

Literary This year, the Nobel Prize goes to a South Korean writer Han Kang. She is the first South Korean winner and also the first Asian woman to win the Nobel Prize.

Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize for his “intense, poetic prose that deals with historical traumas and reveals the fragility of human life”.

The name of the winner was announced in Stockholm by the secretary of the Swedish Academy Mats Malm. He said he was on the phone with Kang, who had just finished breakfast with his son in Seoul. The writer had been very surprised.

Han Kang became known to Western audiences with the 2016 Booker win for the novel Vegetaristiwhere a woman wants to be a plant. The work has been translated into more than ten languages, and it has also been made into a film.

The film depicting the demonstration that led to the horrific massacre in the city of Gwangju was also praised around the world. Human actions.

Han Kang’s works have also been translated into Finnish. Sari Karhulahti your finnish Vegetaristin and Human actions by Deborah Smith from the English editions, but published in Finnish in 2021 The white paper Taru Salminen directly translated from Korean. Salminen’s translation of Han Kang’s novel was published this autumn Don’t leave goodbyes.

In Finland, Han’s books have been published by Gummerus.

In his home country Han Kang was blacklisted by the Minister of Culture in 2017 Vegetaristi– from his novel.

From the eyes of a Nordic reader, there is nothing very political in the book.

Vegetaristi is above all a strictly psychological description of a woman who simply stops eating meat, turns away from society and seeks the silent and separate state of being of a plant.

However, the Korean reader will also find other references. They bring thoughts to the country’s violent recent history and criticize the way the past and political reality are handled in Korea.

Bubbling beneath the surface are references to the bloody Korean War that began in 1950 and lasted for three years, as well as the Gwangju Uprising and its suppression in 1980.

Gwangjussa born Han Kang moved to Seoul with his family at the age of nine, where he still lives. His father was a writer Han Seung-wonso Han Kang literally grew up surrounded by books.

“We moved so often that I went to five schools in total. When it was difficult to make friends and the weekends were idle, I became an avid reader early on.” Han told HS’s Suvi Ahola in 2017.

He read everything as a child: Korean novels and poems, magazines, translations. “Koreans have always been a curious people, and a lot of foreign literature has been translated for us as well. One of the early influences was Fyodor Dostoyevskyi.”

When Han Kang started writing himself, poems and short stories were first published in literary magazines. Vegetarian too is a common “chain novel” in Korean literature, the parts of which also work independently.

In addition to writing, he is dedicated to art and music, which is reflected in his production. Han Kang teaches creative writing at the Seoul Art Institute.

The choice made by the 18-member Swedish Academy. There is traditionally no official list of candidates, and the choice can be made in any corner of the world.

In recent years, the Nobel Prize has been awarded mainly to Western writers, so this year many expected that the Academy would look a little further geographically.

Major the advance favorite in the Nobel race this year, also according to the betting agencies, was a Chinese writer Can Xue.

The second favorite in the betting was the Australian Gerald Murnane. His award would have been defended by the fact that Australia has not won in over 50 years.

Another Australian, Aboriginal writer by Alexis Wright the name emerged, according to news agency AFP, on Wednesday when British bookmaker Ladbrokes suspended his name due to suspicious betting activity. An interruption would indicate a possible leak.

He also appeared frequently in Veikkaus Salman Rushdie. The Indian-born British author discussed the knife attack on himself two years ago in his work published in April Knife: Reflections after an attempted murder (Fin. Maria Lyytinen).

One of the favorites was Antiguan-American Jamaica Kincaidwho has dealt with, among other things, femininity and the legacy of colonialism in his production.

Last in the year the Nobel Prize for literature went to a Norwegian Jon Fosse and before him a Frenchman Annie Ernaux.

The prize was awarded for the first time in 1901.

Han Kang is only the eighteenth woman out of 120 recipients of the award. However, the Swedish Academy has taken steps forward: in the last 20 years, eight women have been awarded.

30 English-language writers and 16 French-language writers have been awarded, but only one Arabic-language writer: an Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz in 1988.

Nobel week will culminate on Friday, when the name of the peace prize recipient will be revealed in Oslo.

The Nobel Prizes will be awarded on December 10 in Stockholm, except for the Peace Prize, which will be awarded in Oslo.

15 previous Nobel laureates

2023: Jon Fosse (Norway)

2022: Annie Ernaux (Ranska)

2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania, Britannia)

2020: Louise Glück (USA)

2019: Peter Handke (Austria)

2018: Olga Tokarczuk (Puola)

2017: Kazuo Ishiguro (Britannia)

2016: Bob Dylan (USA)

2015: Svetlana Aleksievich (Belarus)

2014: Patrick Modiano (France)

2013: Alice Munro (Canada)

2012: Mo Yan (Kiina)

2011: Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden)

2010: Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)

2009: Herta Müller (Germany)

Correction on October 10 at 19:30: Corrected the spelling of the names of Herta Müller, Tomas Tranströmer, Svetlana Aleksijevic and Louise Glück.

Read more: South Korean Han Kang was blacklisted by the Minister of Culture – because of a book in which a woman wants to be a plant

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