Who is Han Kang, the first Nobel Prize-winning novelist?

[Anchor]
Novelist Han Kang, who was the first Korean to be honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature, has built up an international reputation by being selected as the winner of the International Booker Prize of international authority in 2016.

I'll connect with a reporter to find out who the novelist Han Kang is. Reporter Park Soon Pyo!

Can you tell us what kind of writer Han Kang is?

[Reporter]
Yes. Born in 1970, novelist Han Kang majored in Korean literature in university.

In 1993, he made his debut as a poet by publishing four poems including [Winter in Seoul] in the Winter Issue of [Literature and Society].

The following year, in 1994, he took his first step as a novelist when the novel [Red Anchor] was elected in the New Year Literature of the Seoul Newspaper.

After publishing her first novel "Yeosu's Love" in 1995, she quit her job and focused on writing as a full-time writer.

The work that popularized the novelist Han Kang is the 2005 Lee Sang Literary Award-winning novel [Mongo Banjeom].

The Lee Sang Literary Award-winning committee selected Han Kang as the winner as a young writer born in the 1970s and explained the reason for the award, saying that unlike other young writers, a deep world perception is revealed in serious sentences.

In addition, literary critic Professor Lee Eo-ryeong said that it shows another level of fun to read novels with high-level symbolism and excellent writing skills even in the midst of complex story development.

In particular, with his father, novelist Han Seung-won, his father and daughter also gave birth to a true record of winning the Lee Sang Literary Award at the same time.

[Anchor]
Isn't vegetarian the first thing that comes to mind when ordinary readers think of Han Kang as a novelist?

[Reporter]
That's right.

Novelist Han Kang has established himself as a leader in the next generation of Korean novels by releasing a series of big works since his debut.

Then, as Han Kang's work was translated into Anglo-American, it began to draw attention from the world literature community.

In particular, he gained international fame in May 2016, when he was selected as the winner of the International Booker Prize, one of the world's top three literary awards, along with the Nobel Prize for Literature as a novelist and vegetarian.

At the time, the Booker Prize judging committee evaluated novelist Han Kang's vegetarianism as "a compressed, sophisticated and shocking story that shows a strange combination of beauty and fear."

Following the Booker Prize, novelist Han Kang emerged as the most notable author in the world literature community as he was selected as the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature.

At the same time, she won the honor of being the first Asian female writer and the 18th female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In addition, novelist Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature is expected to serve as an opportunity for Korean literature to be reevaluated in the world literature community led by British and American writers.

I'm Park Soonpyo of YTN from the Ministry of Culture.