Not Only News Service: South Korean author Han Kang has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2024, marking a historic moment as she becomes the first Asian woman to receive the prestigious honor. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the award on Thursday, praising Kang for her writing, which “exposes the fragility of human life.” The academy highlighted her unique ability to explore the “connections between body and soul, the living and the dead.”
Born in 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea, Kang comes from a literary family, with her father also being a novelist. She currently resides in Seoul. Her breakthrough novel, The Vegetarian, originally published in Korean in 2007, won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016. Beyond writing, Kang has also explored art and music, adding depth to her creative expression. Her literary debut came in 1995 with a short story collection.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is one of the prestigious awards established by Alfred Nobel, the inventor and industrialist who left his fortune to honor outstanding contributions in various fields, including Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace.
In other Nobel news, the 2024 Chemistry Prize was awarded to David Baker for his computational protein design research, and to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper for their work on protein structure prediction. The Medicine Prize went to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, while John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton won the Physics Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 will be announced on Friday.
The Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually since 1901, recognizing exceptional achievements that have made significant contributions to humanity.
