“The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2024 is awarded to South Korean author Han Kang for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” – The Swedish Academy
When Han Kang was nominated as the winner of the Nobel Prize, people around the world rushed to local bookstores to pick up a copy of The Vegetarian, the novel that introduced Han to the world. Elders, toddlers, teenagers, and parents packed bookstores, inhaling the woody smell of novels, hoping to take a glimpse of the award-winning author. South Korean authors celebrated this advancement of Korean literature over boiling tea and Han’s poems. And a South Korean girl thirty-six million feet away from home let out a quiet yet emotional sigh: “드디어,” finally!
Han Kang is the first Asian female to be awarded the Nobel Literature Prize and the second South Korean winner of the Nobel Prize after President Kim Dae Jung received the Nobel Peace Prize 24 years ago. She is also the first South Korean to receive the International Booker Prize. Though her resume stretches as far as the Hangang, one of Korea’s longest rivers that shares its Korean name with the author, her winning the Nobel Prize had significance far beyond the broken records; she reaffirmed the beauty of the Korean language and the capability for writing to pierce people’s hearts and leave a beautiful dent on them.
A South Korean author winning the most prestigious literature prize in the world untied the knots of doubt and unease I carried in my heart when writing, especially when delivering my stories in Korean. As Han Kang said in her interview with KBS (Korean Broadcasting System), “Being a writer is an independent yet lonesome job… Even if you mess up a novel, you damage yourself, but never others” (translated from Korean). Writing is an arduous journey that inevitably involves the consideration of the readers’ opinions. A timid piece of work that refuses to step beyond the author’s sweet judgment can never impact people. Whenever I wrote in Korean, I felt helpless at the reality that most people around the globe could not understand the nuances of this horridly beautiful language. I doubted whether the Korean alphabet I scrupulously selected and caressed would leave anyone a meaningful lesson. When I learned that Han Kang wrote her articles in Korean and the world was impressed merely by the translated version, I regained the courage to continue writing in Korean. Language barriers may exist, and people may not understand the specific nuances of the story to the fullest degree, but the lessons on living as fragile human beings can be delivered regardless of our mother tongue. For instance, The Vegetarian follows the journey of Yeong-hye, a female protagonist who decides to become a vegetarian. Her decision is considered culturally inappropriate in the context of conservative Korean society, and she eventually gets ostracized by her own family. Through tracing the harsh prosecution against individuals who stand firm for their beliefs, Han criticizes society’s lack of capacity to embrace differences. The Korean language and the context of Korea were merely instruments to deliver a broader message that affects humanity in general, as all of us possess our quirks.
Han Kang’s books not only dive deep into human nature but also introduce a different perspective on traumatic Korean history. Beneath the glories of K-pop, mouth-watering cultural delicacies, and energetic dances, Korea possesses scars. The scars imposed during Japanese colonialism, the ruling of an oppressive dictatorial regime, and many other periods of injustice and tyranny. Han Kang’s eminent novel 소년이 온다 (Human Acts) provides a chance for the observed to be the observers. The young men who were murdered by a brutal police force during the Gwangju Uprising received a chance to tell their story as protagonists rather than getting pitied. Each chapter of the Human Acts, like Han’s many other novels, tells the story from a different observer. Comprehension of hurtful history from diverse viewpoints provides an opportunity for Koreans to empathize and heal from the damages. Even further, her novels send a daring message to all humans and countries with a historical injury to be healed: “Some memories never heal. Rather than fading with time, those memories become the only things that are left behind when all else is abraded” (Human Acts).
Han enlightened me on how impactful writing can be: writing to remember, writing to love, and writing to understand. Writings merge with the readers and melt into them, transforming the readers into completely different people than who they were before. She encouraged me to reflect on my shameful attitude as a creator of stories. As a writer who discusses depressing and, at times, “culturally inappropriate” topics, I often shunned my stories from readers, terrified of their offering a harsh judgment. Her explicit descriptions of pain, violence, and suffering informed me that acknowledging trauma should be the first step to healing. I am still a tad afraid of openly expressing the pain and fear of humans in my stories, but Han’s courage to embrace the pains of living inspires me to continue expressing, revealing, and discussing despite the discomfort.
I write to feel alive. To attach wings on my shoulders that can carry me above and beyond the boundaries of myself. Han Kang writes to liven up the readers. In the era of rampant loneliness, we Korean writers with a painful past and a beautiful future shall unite to spread love through words.
