Han Kang

Han Kang

Han Kang at SIBF 2014
Born (1970-11-27)November 27, 1970
Kwangju, Korea
Occupation Writer
Language Korean
Education Yonsei University
Genre Fiction
Korean name
Hangul 한강
Hanja 韓江
Revised Romanization Han Gang
McCune–Reischauer Han Gang
This is a Korean name; the family name is Han.

Han Kang (Hangul: 한강; born November 27, 1970) is a South Korean writer.[1]

Life

Han Kang is the daughter of novelist Han Seung-won.[2] She was born in Kwangju and at the age of 10, moved to Suyuri (which she speaks of affectionately in her work "Greek Lessons") in Seoul. She studied Korean literature at Yonsei University.[3] Her brother Han Dong Rim is also a writer. She began her writing career when one of her poems was featured in the winter issue of the quarterly Literature and Society. She made her official literary debut in the following year when her short story "The Scarlet Anchor" was the winning entry in the daily Seoul Shinmun spring literary contest. Since then, she has gone on to win the Yi Sang Literary Prize (2005), Today's Young Artist Award, and the Korean Literature Novel Award. As of summer 2013, Han teaches creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts while writing stories and novels, currently working on her 6th novel.[3]

Work

Han's debut work, A Convict's Love, was published in 1995 and attracted attention because it was precisely and tightly narrated.[4] Han wrote The Vegetarian, and its sister-work, Mongolian Mark by hand, as overuse of the computer keyboard had damaged her wrist.[5] The Vegetarian was Kang's first novel translated into English, though Kang had already attracted worldwide attention by the time Deborah Smith translated the novel into English.[6] The translated work features on the short list for the Man Booker International Prize 2016. She is the first Korean to be nominated for the award.

It has been reported that in her college years Kang became obsessed with a line of poetry from Yi Sang: "I believe that humans should be plants."[2] and that Kang interpreted this to be a defensive stance against the violence of the colonial period and took this as an inspiration to write her most successful work, The Vegetarian. Han, however, says that this was misunderstanding of her statement that if a reader became sad, Han was happy that the reader's feelings had changed somehow.[3]

Han's literary career began when she published five poems including “Winter in Seoul,” in the winter issue of Literature and Society in 1993. Her career in fiction began the following year when her work "Red Anchor" won the Seoul Shinmun Sprin Literary Contest. Her first collection, "Love of Yeosu," was published in 1995. In 1998, Han participated in a program at the University of Iowa International Writing Program. Her works published in Korea include, "Fruits of My Woman" (2000); novels including The Black Deer (1998), Your Cold Hand (2002), The Vegetarian (2007), Breath Fighting (2010), and Greek Lessons (2011).

Han is a musician and interested in art, and her work often reflects this.[3] "Your Cold Hand (2002)" revolves around the story of a sculptor and his model. When she published an essay book "Quietly sung songs (2007)", she released a CD with ten songs that she composed, wrote lyrics and record.[7] At first she was not intending to sing, but Han Jung Rim, a musician and music director, insisted Han should record the songs herself.[8]

Han won the 25th Korean Novel Award with her novella, “Baby Buddha” in 1999, the 2000 Today’s Young Artist Award, the 2005 Yi-Sang Literary Award with Mongolian Mark, and the 2010 Dong-ni Literary Award with Breath Fighting. Baby Buddha and The Vegetarian have been made into films. The Vegetarian was turned into a movie that was one of only 14 selections (out of 1,022 submissions) for inclusion in the World Narrative Competition of the prestigious North American Film Fest. The film was also a critical success at the Pusan International Film Festival.[9] Although Mongolian Mark won the Yi Sang Literary Award the rest of the series The Vegetarian and Fire Tree although written, were delayed by contractual problems.[2] She was the youngest to receive Yi Sang Literary Award until 2013 when Kim Aeran received it at the age of 32. Kang's Human Acts was released in January of 2016 receiving five stars from the The Telegraph[10] and a cumulative rating of 4.37 on Goodreads.[11]

Works In Translation

English

Non-English

Awards

See also

References

  1. ↑ "한강 " biographical PDF available at: http://klti.or.kr/ke_04_03_011.do#
  2. 1 2 3 Humans As Plants
  3. 1 2 3 4 Sunday meeting with Han Kang (한강) author of The Vegetarian (채식주의자), Korean Modern Literature in Translation, 11 June 2013, http://www.ktlit.com/korean-literature/sunday-meeting-with-han-kang-%ED%95%9C%EA%B0%95-author-of-vegetarian-%EC%B1%84%EC%8B%9D%EC%A3%BC%EC%9D%98%EC%9E%90
  4. ↑ Korean Writers: The Novelists, Minumsa Publishing p. 78
  5. ↑ Montgomery, Charles (15 November 2015). "Review of Han Kang’s (한강) “The Vegetarian”". www.ktlit.com. KTLit. Retrieved 7 April 2016. Kang revealed in an interview at the Seoul ABC book club (November 7th, 20115) that she wrote this work in longhand, because too much keyboarding had injured her wrist.
  6. ↑ Khakpour, Porochista (2 February 2016). "The Vegetarian, by Han Kang". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  7. ↑ "가만가만부르는노래".
  8. ↑ "[한강] 가만가만, 꿈꾸듯 노래한 한강".
  9. ↑ "Vegetarian" to Compete at Sundance 2010
  10. ↑ McAloon, Jonathan (5 January 2016). "Human Acts by Han Kang, review: 'an emotional triumph'". www.telegraph.co.uk/. The Telegraph. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  11. ↑ "Human Acts". www.goodreads.com. Goodreads. 7 April 2016. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
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