Skip to content
Banner image by Glyn Lowe

And the Nobel Prize in Literature Goes To . . . Han Kang!

Posted on October 10, 2024

Close-up profile headshot of Han Kang.
Image by Park Jaehong.

We couldn't be more excited that South Korean author Han Kang has won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature! Han received the award “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” 

You can read an excerpt from Han's novel The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith, in our Korea unit. The standalone excerpt follows a husband who struggles to understand his wife's decision to give up meat—a choice he sees as a threat to traditional marital values. 

Alongside the literature, you'll find video interviews with the author and translator, resources about South Korea, and teaching ideas about unreliable narrators, first impressions, and snap judgments. 

Want to read even more Han Kang? You can also find an except from her novel The White Book on Words Without Borders.