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2024 Nobel Prize Winner Han Kang: A Master in The Lyrical Exploration of Human Fragility

South Korean novelist Han Kang has received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. This achievement cements her status as one of the most renowned voices in contemporary literature. Kang is well known for her exploration of trauma, identity, and survival. Her writing tackles hard and uncomfortable issues, such as the vulnerability of people, and the impacts of violence carried out in the past.

Born in 1970 in Gwangju, Han grew up in a time of political upheaval. The Gwangju Uprising of 1980, where military forces brutally suppressed civilian protests, has been a recurring influence in her work. Although Han was only nine years old when her family moved to Seoul, just before the massacre, she discovered a hidden book in her home that contained haunting images of the violent aftermath. These images left an indelible mark on her psyche and would later inform her deep interest in themes of violence, memory, and humanity’s capacity for both destruction and resilience.

Her work is renowned for its ability to address these emotional and philosophical depths with lyrical precision. Her 2007 novel The Vegetarian, which won the Booker Man International Prize in 2016, is one of her most internationally recognised works. This novel is about a woman who chooses to stop eating meat after a disturbing dream. In the book, Han explores the ways in which humans rebel against societal constraints placed on them.

Han’s ability to weave poetic language with serious themes continued in Human Acts (2014), a novel that directly addresses the Gwangju Uprising. This book focusses on a boy who dies in the protests and the people who are related to him. It seeks to understand the trauma of such tragic events over time. Han’s own emotional proximity to this history adds a personal resonance to the novel. She grew up in Gwangju, and though she never witnessed the uprising, its aftermath shaped her psyche. Human Acts was her attempt to fill in the gaps that had been silenced and to highlight the echoes of trauma within a nation. 

“Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel? Is the experience of cruelty the only thing we share as a species? Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves the single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, slaughtered – is this the essential of humankind, one which history has confirmed as inevitable?” – Han writes in “Human Acts”

In this respect, it is hard not to admire readers of her books: Han’s work requires them to be emotionally prepared because, contrary to happy ever after troupes, she provides no solutions but merely suggests one has to go through the pain.

Nobel literature committee member Anna-Karin Palm described Han’s writing as “intensely lyrical” and “brutal.” Her writing, according to Muhammad Kamran Fiaz, evokes a sense of  “bearing witness” to the personal and intimate traumas individuals face. These compliments are visualised in Han’s Human Acts, where she writes,

“Is it possible to bear witness to the fact that I ended up despising my own body, the very physical stuff of my self? That I will fully destroy the warmth, any affection whose intensity was more than I could bear, and ran away? To somewhere colder, somewhere safer. Purely to stay alive.”

The White Book (2016) is another example of Han’s exploration of trauma. In the novel, Han uses fragmented prose and imagery to meditate on the premature death of her older sister.

Han often draws from her experiences but places them within a broader historical context. Her characters often grapple with existential questions, as they navigate spaces that blur the line between reality and the metaphysical. Book reviewer, Ariel stated that she had never “felt such great existential crisis while reading a book than I did with The White Book by Han Kang.”

But what sets Han Kang apart is her ability to capture these emotional extremes with poetic elegance. 

“After you died I could not hold a funeral, And So these eyes that once beheld you became a shrine.
These ears that once heard your voice became a shrine. These lungs that once inhaled your breath became a shrine” – Han in ‘Human Acts.’

Han sees language as a challenge. It can be both alluring and dangerous, like a double-edged sword. “Language was like a double-bladed sword that I really wanted to grasp,” she said in an interview.

This struggle with language and the desire to express the inexpressible have shaped much of her literary output. Even though her prose may be sparse at times, it is nevertheless captivating in a way that stays with the reader for a long time after reading. Because of this style, she is often considered to be akin to many literary masters, though she remains original and breaks new grounds in fiction on the theme of humanity.

In a conversation at the Louisiana Literature Festival, Han shared how writing has become a form of self-salvation for her. “I always move on with the strength of my writing,” she stated. Writing, she says, gives her the strength to confront her distrust in humanity and, paradoxically, her fear of its inherent violence. She sees writing as a way to engage oneself with existential questions such as life, death, and morality.

Despite the heavy themes she tackles, Han’s work is also about the possibility of redemption and transformation. Her characters often struggle with their sense of self and their place in the world, but they also search for meaning and connection in the face of overwhelming odds. In this way, Han’s fiction offers an invitation to readers to reflect not only on the horrors of the world but also on the small moments of grace and beauty that persist.

“There are certain memories that remain inviolate to the ravages of time. And to those of suffering. It is not true that everything is colored by time and suffering. It is not true that they bring everything to ruin.”
― Han Kang

For aspiring writers and lovers of literature, Han Kang’s work serves as a masterclass in how literature can be both intensely personal and deeply political. Her journey from the child who stumbled upon a hidden book about her hometown’s tragedy to a Nobel Prize winner reflects the power of storytelling in confronting the past and seeking truth. Through her exploration of violence, identity, and the human spirit, Han Kang has also created a body of work that will resonate for generations to come.

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