The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Thursday that South Korean writer Han Kang, whose writing “exposes the fragility of human life,” has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2024. The first Asian woman to get the honor is Kang.
Kang’s “unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead” was lauded by the academy. Kang presently resides in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, and was born in Gwangju, South Korea, in 1970.
Her father is a novelist, thus she has a literary background. Her 2016 Man Booker International Prize-winning novel The Vegetarian is among her most well-known creations. The book was first released in Korean in 2007. In 1995, she made her literary debut with a collection of short stories. She has also made time for music and the arts.
Other Nobel Prize winners of 2024
The Chemistry Prizes for this year were revealed by the Academy on Wednesday. David Baker was recognized for his contributions to computational protein design, while Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper were recognized for their work in protein structure prediction.
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were named the winners in the medical field by the academy. Geoffrey E. Hinton and John J. Hopfield have won the Physics prize.
Nobel Peace Prize 2024 announcement today
Since 1901, the Nobel Prizes—named for Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel—have been given out. The awards honor outstanding contributions to literature, peace, physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry, and other fields.
Alfred Nobel, who was born in 1833, left the majority of his wealth to create the Nobel Prizes.
