South Korean author Han Kang won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature for “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” the award-giving body said on Thursday.
The prize is awarded by the Swedish Academy and is worth 11 million Swedish crowns, the equivalent of $1.45 million Cdn.
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated that his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” The first awards were given out in 1901.
Past literature winners have included Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, Herman Hesse, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Neruda and Toni Morrison. Last year’s Nobel was awarded to Norwegian author and dramatist Jon Fosse.
Over the years, the literature prize has also picked winners well beyond the novelist tradition, including playwrights, historians, philosophers and poets, even breaking new ground with the award to singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in 2016.
The Nobel prizes are presented to the laureates on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced by the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee in Oslo on Friday, with the Nobel committee announcing this year’s economic sciences award on Monday.