Han Kang

Born in 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea, Han Kang studied Korean literature at Yonsei University. She began her literary career as a poet before publishing her first novel, The Love of Yeosu, in 1995. Her breakthrough came with The Vegetarian (2007), a triptych novel exploring themes of violence, bodily autonomy, and human fragility, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016. Other major works include Human Acts (2014), a harrowing fictional account of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, and The White Book (2016), a meditation on grief and loss. Han's writing is characterized by its stark, poetic prose and deep engagement with trauma, the body, and the natural world. She has received numerous awards, including the Yi Sang Literary Prize and the Prix Médicis étranger, and is widely regarded as one of the most significant contemporary voices in Korean and world literature.