On October 10, 2024, it was announced that the distinguished and prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature 2024 was awarded to South Korean fiction writer Han Kang. The announcement was made by Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden.
The new laureate was afterwards presented by Anders Olsson, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Literature in a citation that declared that Han Kang won the Prize “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. Much of her work is based on traumatic events, and she also writes on critical developments in South Korea. In an interview conducted by the Nobel Prize Museum’s Carin Klaesson, coopted member of the Nobel Committee for Literature, Anna-Karin Palm said that ”Han Kang writes intense, lyrical prose that is both tender and brutal”.