South Korean novelist Han Kang, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, said she will "celebrate quietly tonight" having tea with her son.
"I'm so surprised and I'm absolutely honored," Han said in a phone interview with the Swedish Academy in a video released shortly after the winning announcement.
Speaking in English, Han said she had just finished dinner with her son at home in Seoul, and they were both very surprised by the news.
"I didn't work today. I just read a bit and took a walk. It was a kind of easy day for me," she said.
The 53-year-old author is the first Korean laureate to win the prestigious literary prize. Han said she "grew up with Korean literature" and added that all the writers have been a collective inspiration for her. She hoped that the news would be a nice surprise for Korean literature readers and fellow writers.
For someone just discovering her work, Han suggested starting with her latest book, "We Do Not Part" (published in Korean in 2021).
The novel marked Han's return to the literary scene five years after clinching the International Booker Prize in the UK in 2016 for her 2007 novel "The Vegetarian" (translated by Deborah Smith into English in 2015).
The French edition of "We Do Not Part" won the prestigious Prix Medicis for foreign literature in France last year. The English edition, co-translated by Emily Yae Won and Paige Morris, is currently underway.
"I think every writer likes his or her most recent books," she said. "This book could be a starting point, and 'Human Acts' is directly connected (to this book)."
Han mentioned in a press conference after winning the Prix Medicis last year that “she sees the two books -- 'Human Acts' and 'I Do Not Bid Farewell' -- as a pair."
The two books each delve into the tragic events of Korean modern history, taking the Gwangju Democratization Movement in 1980 and the Jeju April 3 Incident as their respective motifs.
