Author Han Kang receives Nobel Prize in Literature at awards ceremony in Stockholm

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Author Han Kang receives Nobel Prize in Literature at awards ceremony in Stockholm

Published: 11 Dec. 2024, 03:33 Updated: 11 Dec. 2024, 08:52

YIM SEUNG-HYE
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Nobel laureate in literature Han Kang, left, receives her award from Sweden's King Carl Gustaf, right, during the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Dec. 10. [AP]

Author Han Kang stood on the blue carpet in a long black dress and accepted her Nobel Prize medal during the Swedish award's 124th ceremony at Stockholm's landmark concert hall in Sweden, Wednesday.

As soon as the awards ceremony kicked off, the king of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, made an entrance. Then the laureates including Han appeared to take their seats on the stage as Mozart's "March in D Major" was being played.

Han kang's acceptance speech: 'literature stands in opposition to all acts that destroy life.'

The king presented Han with the award. She will also receive a prize money of 11 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.07 million.

Nobel laureate in literature Han Kang attends the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Dec. 10. [YONHAP]

Her award was preceded by the literature award speech by Ellen Mattson, a Swedish writer and part of the Nobel Committee for Literature 2024.

"Two colors meet in Han Kang’s writing: white and red," Mattson began her speech. "The white is the snow that falls in so many of her books, drawing a protective curtain between the narrator and the world, but white is also the color of sorrow, and of death. Red stands for life, but also for pain, blood, the deep cuts of a knife."

"While her voice can be seductively soft, it speaks of indescribable cruelty, of irreparable loss. Blood flows from the bodies piled up after the massacre, darkens, becomes an appeal, a question that the text can neither answer nor ignore: how should we relate to the dead, the abducted, the disappeared? What can we do for them? What do we owe them? The white and the red symbolize a historical experience that Han returns to in her novels," she continued.

Nobel laureate in literature Han Kang attends the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Dec. 10. [YONHAP]

Mattson also introduced Han's books "We Do Not Part" (2021), as a novel that is "played out within a snowstorm where, in piecing together her memories, the narrative self glides through layers of time, interacting with the shadows of the dead and learning from their knowledge – because ultimately it is always about knowledge and seeking out the truth, unbearable though it may be."

Mattson originally had planned to call Han on to the stage in Korean, but it is reported that she decided to use English instead due to difficulty in pronouncing the Korean words.

Professor Astrid Söderbergh Widding, Chair of the Board of the Nobel Foundation, who made an opening address, also said that the literature prize this year is awarded to "a profound exploration of human frailty against the backdrop of historical trauma, where the abyss is always as close as is the longing for transformation, sheds light upon the fatal condition of humankind."

The 80-minute ceremony also awarded John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton the physics prize; David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper the chemistry prize; Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun the physiology or medicine prize; and Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson the economics sciences prize. The Peace Prize, given to Nihon Hidankyo, was given on the same day in Oslo, Norway, as per the Swedish award's tradition.

Han was named this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature earlier this year "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life," according to the Swedish Academy. She is the first Asian female to win the 124-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.

Nobel laureate in literature Han Kang, center left, receives her award from Sweden's King Carl Gustaf, center right, during the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden on Dec. 10. [AP]

The awards ceremony came to an end as all participants sang the Swedish national anthem. The ceremony will immediately be followed by the Nobel Banquet at the Blue Hall of the City Hall of Stockholm.

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE,LEE JIAN [[email protected]]