The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to South Korean author Han Kang.
The writer has been recognised by the Swedish Academy “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
Anders Olsson, chairman of the academy's Nobel committee, said: “She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in her poetic and experimental style has become an innovator in contemporary prose.”
Han previously won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016 for her novel The Vegetarian, the first of her books to be translated into English.
Born in Gwangju in 1970, Han moved with her family to Seoul when she was nine. She comes from a literary background, her father being a reputed novelist.
The first South Korean to win the literature prize, Han began her career in 1993 with the publication of a number of poems in the Literature and Society magazine. Her first prose publication came in 1995 with the short story collection Love of Yeosu.
Her most recent novel, We Do Not Part, is due to be published in English next year.
In addition to her writing, Han is also a musician and artist, which is reflected in her literary works.
Mats Malm, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said he told the newly-awarded laureate of her success over the phone. “She was having an ordinary day, it seems, just finished supper with her son. She wasn't really prepared for this,” he said.
Han is one of only 18 women to receive the literature Nobel out of 121 laureates and her win surprised prize-watchers, not having featured in the speculation in the run-up to the announcement.
Recent winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature include Japanese-British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, Poland's Olga Tokarczuk and Canadian short story writer Alice Munro. Last year, it went to Norway's Jon Fosse “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”.
Other past winners include Irish poet W.B. Yeats, who won in 1923, American novelist Ernest Hemingway, who took the award in 1954, and Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner in 1982.
The latest Nobel award is the fourth this week, following announcements for medicine, physics and chemistry. Each prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by its creator, the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winner will be revealed on October 14.
Laureates will be invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.
