Photo : YONHAP News
President Yoon Suk Yeol has congratulated author Han Kang on winning the 2024 Nobel Prize in literature, calling it “a great achievement” in the history of Korean literature.
The president, who is visiting Laos to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, issued the congratulatory message Thursday in a social media post.
Yoon said the whole nation was celebrating Han’s achievement, and he expressed his respect for her for transforming the painful wounds of South Korea’s modern history into great literature.
Earlier, the Swedish Academy praised Han for writing “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
The president said he hopes Han will continue to receive love from readers worldwide for her outstanding works.
Han is the first Asian woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature and only the second South Korean Nobel laureate.
Former President Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.