The Nobel Prize in literature has long faced criticism for its focus on European and North American men. Han Kang, the first Asian woman to win, writes “intense lyrical prose that is both tender and brutal,

The honor, one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, went to the South Korean novelist for "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas.

H AN KANG has been called “Korea’s Kafka”. Rather than giant bugs, her metamorphoses involve vegetation. “The Fruit of My Woman”, a short story, imagines a wife becoming a (withered) houseplant. “The Vegetarian”, a prizewinning novel, depicts a woman consumed by her desire to sprout roots and become a tree.

Han Kang's Nobel Prize was a surprise to many in South Korea. Here's what you need to know about 'her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life'

More than a million copies of books by Han Kang, the first South Korean to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, have sold locally since the honour was announced, bookstores

Along a serene, narrow alley in central Seoul's Seochon neighborhood stands a small, red-bricked building with a bookstore about 10 square meters in size.

Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature has not only highlighted her works but also shone a spotlight on the importance of translation.

Han Kang, the South Korean winner of the 2024 Nobel prize in literature, made her breakthrough in the English-speaking world with her first translated novel (her third in Korean), The Vegetarian. Published in English in 2015,