The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to 53-year-old South Korean Novelist Han Kang for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. Her notable works include The Vegetarian, The White Book, Human Acts and Greek Lessons. She is the first Korean to win the award. In her interview with the Swedish Academy Ms Kang said, “I am so surprised and absolutely am honoured”.

Han Kang began her career in 1993, with the publication of several poems in the magazine “Literature and Society”. She debuted in prose in 1995 when she published a short story collection “Love of Yeosu”, followed soon afterwards by several prose works, both novels and short stories.

Her international breakthrough came with the novel “The Vegetarian” published in 2007. The book is written in three parts. It depicts the violent consequences that result when the protagonist Yeong-Hye doesn’t follow the norms of food intake.

Han Kang was born in 1970 in the South Korean city of Gwangju before moving to the capital Seoul. She followed in the footsteps of her father who, himself was a reputed novelist. Apart from writing she has a deep devotion to Art and Music which is mirrored in her literary production. Last year, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Norwegian Author, Jon Olav Fosse for his “innovative plays and prose which gives voice to the unsayable”.