From penetrating words to images that linger in the mind, Han Kang readers tell us what her work means to them
Jem BartholomewTue 15 Oct 2024 06.32 EDTLast modified on Tue 15 Oct 2024 07.05 EDTShareThe 2024 Nobel prize in literature has been awarded to South Korean novelist Han Kang, 53, whose works include The Vegetarian, The White Book, Human Acts and Greek Lessons.
The Nobel committee praised Han’s “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
The Guardian asked readers of Han’s books to share what her writing means to them, with dozens getting in touch about their thoughts.
‘I emerge painfully transformed from all of Han Kang’s books’
View image in fullscreenMia Kovačić says she emerges ‘painfully transformed from all of Han Kang’s books.’I read The Vegetarian first. I found it subversive, poetic, dark, violent, and genuine. It was something unlike anything I had read before and it seemed to stand in a league of its own.
It’s a deeply feminist book, purely because it’s a deeply human book that deals with a woman breaking with everything she has ever known – her family, her husband, all of society. It was a transformative read and an unpretentiously radical book.
Human Acts was traumatising in its immediacy – it was chilling and violent and I felt like I was there, with those students [during the 1980 student protests]. I emerge painfully transformed from all of Han Kang’s books.
Having raved about her to anyone who would listen, I was really thrilled to see her get this recognition. She is a unique voice that deserves to be heard everywhere in the world. Mia Kovačić, 34, communications director, Paris
‘It made me weep for the power of kindness’
View image in fullscreenKatherine Wildman says she devoured The Vegetarian during a train journey in one day.I went to Skiathos, Greece this year and took Greek Lessons with me. I have recommended it to so many people since, saying that nothing happens but everything happens … it made me weep for the power of kindness.
Next was The Vegetarian, which I’ve had on my bookshelf for years. I read that one on the train to London and devoured it in a day. It says everything and everything happens.
Her writing is compelling and urgent and true. It’s a sucker punch and I’m so very glad I found her work. Katherine Wildman, 50, copywriter, near Newcastle
‘It always left intense images in my mind’
View image in fullscreenNoah Kim says Han Kang captures the experience of ‘individuals who have fought for their existence’.Han Kang’s works comfort the grief of Korean contemporary history and society. I’ve been soothed by them and influenced by their narratives, which have always left intense images in my mind and affected my writing and drawing. Like the endless darkness and solitude of I Do Not Bid Farewell, or the deprived hopes and misaligned yearnings of Human Acts.
I was in London studying the first time I read The Vegetarian. When I finished the book, I felt as if I’d watched a work of contemporary visual art – it embodied the powerful visualisation of its narrative. It captured me, tightly.
One great strength of her novels is to bring out the intangible lives of little people throughout Korean history and society, their historical and social griefs and agonies that are often disregarded. She captures the voices, and resistance, of vulnerable people – individuals who have fought for their existence. Noah Kim, 33, draws illustrations and writes short stories for children’s books, Seoul, South Korea
View image in fullscreenA book store worker handles books by Han. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP‘Han Kang’s writing erases distance’
View image in fullscreenJenni Reid was deeply affected by Human Acts.I am currently studying Korean and was loaned a copy of Human Acts by my professor. Once I started reading I couldn’t put it down, I read late into the night, straight to the final page.
I had been familiar with the events of 1980 [the Gwangju uprising and brutal repression], but the story, as it shifted from one narrator to the other, affected me deeply. The level of violence perpetrated against the students – the way a nation was terrorised – is something we see repeated often across the world. It is something I fear may unfold in the US.
But there can be a certain distance when we see media reports of events like this. What Han Kang’s writing has done is erase that distance – her words penetrate straight through the heart, and I am left feeling the loss of those children as if they were the classmates of my own son. Jenni Reid, works with children with special needs, Syracuse, New York
‘I was haunted for months afterwards’
View image in fullscreenHugo Maio says some scenes haunted him for months afterwards.I was haunted by Han Kang’s Human Acts for months after reading it. I feel it creeping up sometimes, unannounced, and for no discernible reason. There are images in that book that will never leave me, like one scene at the beginning of Human Acts – a horror that immediately casts a shadow over the rest of the book.
For me, what’s special about Han Kang is that the severity of her themes and the raw brutality of the things she writes about are coupled with this intensity of language, this shameless, ceaseless, horrible beauty. She’s a writer who’s unafraid of bringing powerful emotions to the table, whose grasp of measure and proportion is admirable, all in service of evoking the unfathomable, that spontaneous violence that underlies our quotidian and that may be unearthed at any time.
I was jumping with joy for hours after the Swedish Academy’s announcement. There’s always been a dearth of attention to east Asian novels in the west, where a sort of tokenism is often accompanied by lack of any proper interest, particularly for women’s writing, a dearth that has only in recent years started to be redressed. Hugo Maio, 32, PhD researcher studying medieval Portuguese literature, Coimbra, Portugal
