South Korean novelist Han Kang has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
Han Kang’s gained international spotlight with her novel The Vegetarian, which has been written in three parts. The engrossing novel highlights the violent consequences of its protagonist Yeong-hye declined the norms of food intake and her refusal to eat meat is met with various, entirely different reactions.
After suffering rejection of her behavior by her closest relatives including father and husband, she is referred to a psychiatric clinic but there is no recovery from her psychosis-like condition.
As noted by the Nobel Prize website, the writer expresses her condition through the ‘flaming trees’ metaphor.
The Vegetarian is the first South Korean English language novel that has won the International Booker Prize.
Her other works include The Wind Blows, Go” and Human Acts.
“Han Kang’s physical empathy for extreme life stories is reinforced by her increasingly charged metaphorical style.,” the Nobel Prize organization notes.
The White Book is another novel where Han Kang’s poetic style is at work.
