Han Kang 'shocked' by martial law, calls it a 'return to the age of control and suppression'

Home > Culture > Books

Han Kang 'shocked' by martial law, calls it a 'return to the age of control and suppression'

Published: 06 Dec. 2024, 21:26 Updated: 06 Dec. 2024, 22:57

LEE JIAN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Korean author Han Kang answers questions from reporters at the Nobel Prize Museum in Sweden on Dec. 6 during her first official press conference since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. [YONHAP]

Author Han Kang said she is "following the news with shock" regarding the recent declaration and withdrawal of Korea's emergency martial law.

"Just like many other Koreans during the past couple of days, I was shocked that martial law was declared in the year 2024," she reportedly told the press in Stockholm on Friday. "I sincerely hope we will not go back to the age of control and suppression of speech."

President Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law on Tuesday, putting one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies under military rule. The decree was lifted six hours later, following a unanimous parliament vote as well as a nationwide fury and anxiety that rippled around the world.

"I saw people trying to stop armed vehicles with their bodies, restraining armed soldiers by hugging them with their bare hands, and standing ground though soldiers were approaching with guns. When the troops were retreating, I also saw some shouting goodbye as if they were talking to their sons,” said Han.

Author Han Kang looks over displays at the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, on Friday. She held a press conference on the same day. [YONHAP]

Korean author Han Kang answers questions from reporters at the Nobel Prize Museum in Sweden on Dec. 6 during her first official press conference since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. [YONHAP]

Speaking about the soldiers dispatched to the front of the parliament building in western Seoul, she added: "I felt an inner conflict and that they were moving passively. From the perspective of those who ordered the command, it may be seen as passive, but from the more general value perspective, I think it was an active act of thinking and judging, to try to find solutions while feeling pain."

Many of Han’s books are about human trauma, particularly those incurred by historical and societal events. Her book “Human Acts” (2014) directly deals with the last time emergency martial law was declared, in 1979. It led to the 1980 May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement and a military coup by former president and then-brigadier general Chun Doo-Hwan (1931-2021) - events which Han poignantly narrates through the book's characters.

Her latest novel, “We Do Not Part” (2021), slated for an English-language publication in January, is set during the Jeju Uprising that began in 1947. After Korea’s liberation from Japan, civilians protested against the U.S. military government and the imminent division of the peninsula. Deemed “communist forces,” some 30,000 people on Jeju Island were massacred until 1954.

Korean author Han Kang answers questions from reporters at the Nobel Prize Museum in Sweden on Dec. 6 during her first official press conference since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. [YONHAP]

Han will continue to celebrate her Nobel win in Stockholm throughout next week. On Saturday, she is scheduled to give a live-streamed lecture and attend the Nobel Prize ceremony on Dec. 10 at the Konserthuset concert hall.

Han is the first Korean author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is also the first female Asian to win the 123-year-old accolade and the second Korean to receive a Nobel Prize, following President Kim Dae-jung (1924-2009), who won the Peace Prize in 2000.

BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]