Han Kang, the South Korean author, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.
Mats Malm, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which organizes the prize, announced the decision at a news conference in Stockholm.
The Nobel Prize is literature’s pre-eminent award, and winning it is a capstone to a writer, poet or playwright’s career. Past recipients have included Toni Morrison, Harold Pinter and, in 2016, Bob Dylan. Along with the prestige and a huge boost in sales, the new laureate receives 11 million Swedish krona, about $1 million.
In recent years, the academy has tried to increase the diversity of authors considered for the literature prize, after facing criticism over the low number of laureates who were female or came from outside Europe and North America.
Since 2020, the academy has awarded the prize to one person of color — Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian writer whose novels dissect the legacy of colonialism — as well as two women: Louise Glück, the American poet, and Annie Ernaux, the French writer of autobiographical works.
Last year’s recipient was Jon Fosse, a Norwegian author and playwright whose novels, told in lengthy sentences, often contain religious undertones.
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