Hang Kang is a 53-year-old fiction writer and a former winner of the Man Booker International Prize for her 2007 novel The Vegetarian. At the Nobel Literature Prize ceremony, she was praised “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
The Nobel Prize committee has awarded the literary award since 1901 and this marks the 18th time a woman has won the prize. Han Kang is the first South Korean winner of the prize, who was described by the Nobel Prize board as someone who has “devoted herself to music and art”. She won 11m krona (£810,000) which is the amount awarded to each Nobel Prize winner this year.