Nobel Prize in literature is awarded to South Korean author Han Kang for her 'intense poetic prose'
Stockholm, Oct 10: South Korean author Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for what the Nobel committee called “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
Nobel committee chairman Anders Olsson praised Han's “physical empathy for the vulnerable, often female lives” of her characters.
“She has a unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and in a poetic and experimental style, has become an innovator in contemporary prose,” Olsson said.
Nobel literature committee member Anna-Karin Palm said Han writes “intense lyrical prose that is both tender and brutal, and sometimes slightly surrealistic as well.”
Han becomes the first Asian woman and the first South Korean writer to win the Nobel literature prize. She also becomes the second South Korean national to win a Nobel Prize, after late former President Kim Dae-jung won the peace prize in 2000. He was honoured for his efforts to restore democracy in South Korea during the country's previous military rule and improve relations with war-divided rival North Korea.
Han wins the Nobel at a time of growing global influence of South Korean culture, which in recent years has included the success of films like director Bong Joon-ho's Oscar-winning “ Parasite,” the Netflix survival drama “Squid Game” and the worldwide fame of K-pop groups like BTS and BLACKPINK.
Han, 53, won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for “The Vegetarian,” an unsettling novel in which a woman's decision to stop eating meat has devastating consequences.
At the time of winning that award, Han said writing novels “is a way of questioning for me.”
“I just try to complete my questions through the process of my writing and I try to stay in the questions, sometimes painful, sometimes - well - sometimes demanding,” she said.
With “The Vegetarian,” she said, ”I wanted to question about being human and I wanted to describe a woman who desperately didn't want to belong to the human race any longer."
Her novel “Human Acts” was an International Booker Prize finalist in 2018.
Han made her publishing debut as a poet in 1993; her first short story collection was published the following year and her first novel, “Black Deer,” in 1998. Works translated into English include “The Vegetarian,” “Greek Lessons,” “Human Acts” and “The White Book,” a poetic novel that draws on the death of Han's older sister shortly after birth. Her most recent novel, “We Do Not Part,” is due to be published in English next year.
Olsson, the committee chair, called “Human Acts” a work of “witness literature.” It is based on the real-life killing of pro-democracy protesters in Han's home city of Gwangju in 1980.
The literature prize has long faced criticism that it is too focused on European and North American writers of style-heavy, story-light prose. It has also been male-dominated, with just 17 women among its 119 laureates until this year's award. The last woman to win was Annie Ernaux of France, in 2022.
Six days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize. Two founding fathers of machine learning — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — won the physics prize on Tuesday. On Wednesday, three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to decode and even design novel proteins were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award next Monday.
The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (USD 1 million) from a bequest left by the award's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
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Kumaraswamy says ‘caste for sake of a chair’ charge against CM Siddaramaiah was serious
Bengaluru (PTI): Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Sunday launched a sharp counterattack on Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, asserting that his charge that the CM had “dragged caste into the picture for the sake of a chair” was made in all seriousness and not in jest.
Responding to Siddaramaiah’s media statement targeting the JD(S) leadership, Kumaraswamy in a post on X said, “When I said that Siddaramaiah has dragged caste into the picture for the sake of a chair, I did not say it jokingly; I said it seriously."
In his statement, Siddaramaiah had alleged that Kumaraswamy and his father, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, were 'family-centric' and that "in the past, present and future, the top leaders of the Janata Dal (Secular) will be members of the Gowda family".
Reacting to this, the MP wrote, “Siddaramaiah, I do not speak in a roundabout manner. I will come straight to the point.”
Taking strong exception to Siddaramaiah’s remarks against his father, Kumaraswamy said, “You are not a champion of social justice but its destroyer. It is shocking that you are pointing fingers at Deve Gowda, who gave you political strength and life. The power you hold today and the attire of a social justice crusader you wear are all gifts of Deve Gowda. You too are a product and beneficiary of his social justice.”
He further contended that had Deve Gowda been guided solely by caste or family considerations, Siddaramaiah would not have risen in politics.
“Had he thought only about his own caste and family back then, you would not have become Finance Minister, nor would you have secured even the chairmanship of a corporation,” he said.
Referring to the Chief Minister’s listing of several Vokkaliga leaders who had left the JD(S), Kumaraswamy said, “Like you, they too enjoyed power and grew in stature because of Deve Gowda’s hard work and sacrifice, and later jumped the fence. As you claim, had Gowda believed that only family mattered, none of those on the list would have become MLAs, Ministers or MPs — including you! What do you say?”
He also objected to Siddaramaiah invoking senior Congress leaders in his defence.
“Do you possess even a mustard seed’s worth of worthiness or morality to utter S M Krishna’s name? The world knows how cruelly you betrayed Krishna, whom you once described before Sonia Gandhi as ‘an unpolished diamond’ and who paved your way into the Congress,” he wrote.
Kumaraswamy rejected the Chief Minister’s claim that the Congress alone had nurtured Vokkaliga leaders. “You say it is the Congress that nurtured Vokkaligas — sheer nonsense… If the Congress alone makes Vokkaligas Chief Ministers, should you not immediately vacate the chair? This is the right time to demonstrate your love for Vokkaligas!” he said.
He also raised questions about Siddaramaiah’s second term as Chief Minister and the reported power tussle between him and his deputy D K Shivakumar.
The JD(S) leader said he welcomed the generosity of the Congress in giving capable leadership to the Vokkaliga community.
He demanded that Siddaramaiah should also need to demonstrate that generosity by vacating the top post, paving the way for a 'Vokkaliga' -- an apparent reference to Shivakumar.
According to Kumaraswamy, before Siddaramaiah became the Chief Minister for a second term, there was an agreement between him and Shivakumar and he should now show the generosity to reveal it publicly. "I believe that Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretaries K C Venugopal and Randeep Singh Surjewala, who were witnesses to that agreement between the two of you in Delhi, have now understood the peak of your commitment to social justice and love for Vokkaligas. At least I believe their mental faculties are intact."
In a pointed remark on social justice, Kumaraswamy alleged that it is repulsive that the "destroyer of social justice" keeps speaking repeatedly about social justice.
"Your social justice has no conscience. If it had, Mallikarjun Kharge would have become Chief Minister before you,” the Union Minister said.
Concluding his post, he said if Siddaramaiah was truly a leader of AHINDA (an acronym for minorities, backward castes and Dalits) and a representative of social justice, he would not have dragged in the caste into which he was born at such a sensitive time.
He advised Siddaramaiah not to invoke the names of social reformers in future.
