The winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature is South Korean author Han Kang. Recognized by the Swedish Academy “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” Han is the first Asian woman and the first South Korean to win the literature Nobel in its 123-year-old history.

Han Kang began her career in 1993 as a poet, but has since written mainly novels and short stories.  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. 

Her body of work includes novels, novellas, essays, poetry, and short stories. Kang’s first novel translated into English (and more than 20 other languages), The Vegetarian, was an international breakthrough and won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. Her third novel, The White Book, was shortlisted for the same award just two years later. In awarding the prize, the Nobel committee cited Kang’s “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” She is also frequently credited with elevating the international profile of Korean literature.

Four of Kang’s novels have been translated into English (all available to borrow with a library card) and a fifth, We Do Not Part, will be published in the U.S. in January, 2025.

Greek Lessons: A Novel (translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won)

A dazzling novel about the saving grace of language and human connection.  In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight.  Soon the two discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it’s the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence. Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish—the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are the very things that draw them to each other. Slowly the two discover a profound sense of unity—their voices intersecting with startling beauty, as they move from darkness to light, from silence to breath and expression.

Human Acts: A Novel (translated by Deborah Smith)

Follows the aftermath of a young boy’s shocking death during a violent student uprising as told from the perspectives of the event’s victims and their loved ones.

The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho’s own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice. An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.

The Vegetarian : A Novel (translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith)

When ordinary and submissive Yeong-hye becomes a vegetarian, her family treats her decision as both a disease and a betrayal. As they try to control her, their own manners deteriorate, culminating in violence, adultery, and estrangement. Yeong-hye becomes a Bartleby-like figure as her personal choice morphs into other acts of social rebellion, such as being shirtless in public or refusing to ingest anything but water. Korean writer Han Kang’s elegant yet unsettling prose conveys her protagonist’s brother-in-law’s obsessive, art-centered lust; her sister’s tepid, regret-riddled existence; and Yeong-hye’s vivid, disturbing dreams. What is more upsetting is how the characters’ taboo behavior begins to seem reasonable over time, perhaps because they have ignored their desires for so long. Divided into three novellas, The Vegetarian shows how one woman’s step toward independence destroys a family that thrives on oppression and what they consider to be normal.

The White Book (translated by Deborah Smith)

While on a writer’s residency, a nameless narrator wanders the twin white worlds of the blank page and snowy Warsaw. The White Book becomes a meditation on the color white, as well as a fictional journey inspired by an older sister who died in her mother’s arms, a few hours old. The narrator grapples with the tragedy that has haunted her family, an event she colors in stark white–breast milk, swaddling bands, the baby’s rice cake-colored skin–and, from here, visits all that glows in her memory: from a white dog to sugar cubes. As the writer reckons with the enormity of her sister’s death, Han Kang’s trademark frank and chilling prose is softened by retrospection, introspection, and a deep sense of resilience and love. The White Book–ultimately a letter from Kang to her sister–offers powerful philosophy and personal psychology on the tenacity and fragility of the human spirit, and our attempts to graft new life from the ashes of destruction.

—Archana Chiplunkar, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian