South Korean Nobel winner refuses to hold celebratory press conference due to ongoing wars

By Anadolu staff

ANKARA (AA) - South Korean author Han Kang, the 2024 winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, on Friday refused to hold a celebratory press conference, citing the simmering global tragedies of the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Han's father, Han Seung-won, 85, who himself is a renowned novelist, conveyed her message during a press conference at the Han Seung-won Literary School in Jangheung, South Jeolla province on Friday, Korea Times reported.

"(Han) told me, 'With the war intensifying and people being carried out dead every day, how can we have a celebration or a press conference?' She said she won't hold a press conference," he was quoted as saying.

"Her perspective has shifted from being a writer living in Korea to a global (writer's) consciousness. I, however, could not shake off the feeling of being the father of a prizewinner living in Korea, so I ended up arranging this press conference," he added.

Han also discouraged her father from arranging a celebratory reception at the literary school.

"I was planning to throw a party here for the local people, but my daughter told me not to do it. She said, 'Please don't celebrate while witnessing these tragic events’," he said, referring to the two wars.

Han was recognized for "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life," the Nobel Committee for literature announced on Thursday.

The author was born in 1970 in South Korea, where she still resides.

She began her career in 1993, and her "major international breakthrough came with the novel The Vegetarian," first published in 2007, which "portrays the violent consequences that ensue when its protagonist Yeong-hye refuses to submit to the norms of food intake."