South Korean author Han Kang has been named the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. It’s the first time that an Asian woman has been awarded one of the literary world’s top accolades.
Kang was born in 1970 and comes from a literary background as her father is also a reputed novelist.
The Swedish Academy highlights works such as her international breakthrough “The Vegetarian.” Published in 2007, it tells the story of a woman who faces violent consequences for refusing to eat meat.
The Academy also mentions 2016’s “The White Book,” an exploration of grief, which it calls “less a novel and more a kind of secular prayer book.”
The Academy says Kang’s poetic and experimental style is an “innovator” in contemporary prose.
The Nobel in Literature is worth over 1 million dollars. On Friday, the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize will be announced.