S. Korean Nobel winner Han Kang hopes daily life ‘won’t change much’
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South Korean author Han Kang attends the Pony Chung Innovation Award ceremony in Seoul on Oct 17.
PHOTO: AFP
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SEOUL - Author Han Kang, the first South Korean to win the Nobel Prize in literature,
The short story writer and novelist is best known overseas for her Man Booker Prize-winning The Vegetarian, her first novel translated into English.
The 53-year-old, who also became the first Asian woman author to win the Nobel, was chosen “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”, the Swedish Academy said last week.
Winning the Nobel was “a joyful and thankful moment, and I quietly celebrated that night”, she said at an award event in Seoul.
Han’s win has created a sensation in South Korea, with the websites of major bookshops and publishing houses crashing after the result was announced, as tens of thousands rushed to order her books.
“The past week, filled with so many people sharing in my joy as if it were their own, will be remembered as a special and moving experience for me,” she said.
As at the morning of Oct 16, at least 1.06 million copies, including e-books, had been sold since the Nobel announcement on Oct 10, with bookshops telling AFP her sales were “unprecedented” and had dramatically boosted sales of South Korean literature as a whole.
The writer said she hopes she would be able to continue her normal routines, focused on writing.
“I hope and believe that my daily life won’t change too much,” she said. “I am someone who connects with the world through the writing I do, and I hope to continue writing and meeting readers through my books, just as I have always done.
“I don’t drink alcohol. Recently, I have stopped consuming all caffeine, including coffee, for health reasons. I rarely travel any more, something I once enjoyed. In other words, I am often asked, ‘What do you find fun in life?’ Instead, I enjoy walking.”
She said she is currently working on finishing a novel she started in the spring, which she hopes would be ready for release in 2025.
“But since I often misjudge the timing of my own writing, I can’t give a firm answer on when exactly it will be completed,” she added.
She has three more books in mind to write, she said, adding she hopes to devote the next six years of her life – before she turns 60 – to them.
“However, just as it has always been, I suspect that as I write these, I will come up with ideas for more books, and I will never stop thinking about the books I want to write,” she said.
“This makes me worry that I might not even be able to die properly, always haunted by the thought of the next three books I want to write.” AFP
