Han Kang's Nobel Prize acceptance speech: 'Literature stands in opposition to all acts that destroy life'

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Han Kang's Nobel Prize acceptance speech: 'Literature stands in opposition to all acts that destroy life'

Published: 11 Dec. 2024, 08:25 Updated: 11 Dec. 2024, 09:41

YIM SEUNG-HYE
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Korea’s first Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, Han Kang, receives her award at the Nobel Prize award ceremony at the Blue Hall of Stockholm City Hall in Sweden on Dec. 10. [REUTERS]

Korea’s first Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, Han Kang, delivered her acceptance speech at the Nobel Banquet held in the Blue Hall of Stockholm City Hall on Wednesday.

Her speech, like her lecture on Dec. 7, reflected on childhood memories, particularly the "moment of wonder" when she experienced numerous "first-person perspectives."

The Nobel Banquet followed the Nobel Prize award ceremony earlier that day. Han's speech was delivered in English.

“Ever since I was a child, I have wanted to know. The reason we are born. The reason suffering and love exist. These questions have been asked by literature for thousands of years, and continue to be asked today," she said. "What is the meaning of our brief stay in this world? How difficult is it for us to remain human, come what may?"

She spoke about "language" as something that "asks what we are made of, that insists on imagining into the first-person perspectives of the people and living beings that inhabit this planet — language that connects us to one another.”

Han concluded her speech by stating, “Literature that deals in this language inevitably holds a kind of body heat. Just as inevitably, the work of reading and writing literature stands in opposition to all acts that destroy life. I would like to share the meaning of this award, which is for literature, with you — standing here together.”

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [[email protected]]