Han Kang (Hangul: 한강; born 27 November 1970) is a South Korean writer. She is known for her novel The Vegetarian. It talks about a woman having mental illness and is neglected from her family. This became the first Korean language novel to win the International Booker Prize for fiction in 2016.[1] The novel is also her first novel to be translated into English.[2]
She was awarded the 2024Nobel Prize in Literature for "her intence poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exproses the fragility of human life"[3] She is the first South Korean writer and first female writer from Asia to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.[4]
Han Kang's 2017 autobiographical novel The White Book is about the loss of her older sister, a baby who died two hours after her birth. In 2018 Kang became the fifth writer chosen to work for the Future Library project.
Kang says she suffers from migraines many times throughout the day, and that these migraines "keep her humble."[6] She has one son and was married to professor Hong Yong-hee, though they're currently divorced.[7][8][9][10]