Han Kang’s Nobel Win Is A Global Recognition of Korean Literature

It is the ideal time for all of us to stop moving and ponder the definition of cruelty and ask ourselves, is that all that ties us together — as a species?

I quitely seat my chair and read from excerpts Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian” (Portobello Books, 2015) , celebrating her last months' Nobel Prize win. These two are as far removed as they come — like a brutal, ongoing tragedy and an annual literary award — yet — to me at least — feel oddly coincidental. It speaks both to the collective weight of violence, grief and resilience that characterize humanity.

Few writers have the courage or the ability to explore humanity’s darkest truth. Sometimes they failed but they never forego “struggling” and only a few of them will corner the visceral cruelty that is us. It is not that ‘our humanity’ does not build civilizations and only brings about horrific violence — state sponsored killing, genocide, oppression. I rarely find literature which can close the gap between our bloody history and the aching grief and fragile hope we all carry. Which is why, in such a devastating year, it feels so right that Han Kang has won the Nobel Prize. The dust always brings us to the nature of cruelty and questions whether this…