Debilitating migraines, a literary family and library ban: Surprising facts about Nobel laureate Han Kang

1. Han Kang’s work operates on two levels. On one hand, she conveys that words are inadequate to fully express the depth of human experience, yet on the other, she acknowledges that language is all we have to confront personal pain (The White Book, Greek Lessons), family violence and social alienation (The Vegetarian), or collective trauma (Human Acts).

2. Like many Koreans of her generation, Han Kang (born 1970) grew up reading Latin American writers. At the time, Korea had yet to emerge as a technological powerhouse and saw its own struggles reflected in the dictatorships of the Southern Cone and the Caribbean, marked by the tension between a crumbling rural world and an urban landscape rising through a force of concrete and modernization.

3. Human Acts is set in Gwangju during the 1980 massacre that contributed to the fall of a 40-year dictatorship. Just months earlier, Han Kang had relocated with her family to the Suyuri district in Seoul. The haunting image of a coliseum filled with bodies and flies imprinted itself in her mind. The novel weaves together harrowing details reminiscent of a court report, echoes of Juan Rulfo’s stark portrayal of suffering, and the lingering pain of survivor’s guilt.

4. Suyuri plays a significant psychogeographic role in Greek Lessons, a novel where the study of a dead language parallels the protagonists’ gradual loss of speech and vision. Yet, despite its recurring presence in Han Kang’s work, the Korean public does not associate her with Suyuri. For most Koreans, it is instead known as the childhood home of the nation’s most famous comedian, Yoo Jae-suk. Not even a Nobel laureate can overshadow Yoo Jae-Suk, who dominates television and is a ubiquitous face in ads for instant noodles, energy drinks, and ice cream.

5. Han Kang’s father is a writer, as is her elder brother. By winning the Nobel Prize, the youngest member of the family has upended the traditional patrilineal order, where the eldest son typically holds all the privileges and responsibilities.

6. Both Han Kang and her father won the prestigious Yi Sang Literary Award (in 1988 and 2005, respectively). Yi Sang, perhaps the most avant-garde figure in Korean literature, wrote during the 1930s under Japanese occupation. Trained as an architect, his poetry incorporated numbers, lines, dots, equations, and diagrams, pushing the boundaries of language and form. One of his phrases deeply resonated with Han Kang while she was writing The Vegetarian: “I believe that humans should be plants.”

7. In The Vegetarian, the female protagonist’s refusal to eat meat serves as an allegory, as is often the case in works with literary ambitions. Her rejection of meat symbolizes her defiance against her husband and family, a deeply disruptive act in a society governed by nunchi — the nuanced ability to read social cues, avoid causing discomfort, and maintain established hierarchies.

8. In some libraries and schools in the Seoul metropolitan area, The Vegetarian has been banned due to concerns that it distorts perceptions of sexuality among children.

9. Sunme Yoon was so impressed after reading The Vegetarian that she decided to translate it into Spanish. She persuaded the Argentine publishing house Bajo La Luna to publish it in 2012, four years before it was released in English and went on to win the Man Booker Prize. Until then, Han Kang was virtually unknown outside Korea. Raised in Buenos Aires, Yoon was instrumental in introducing Han Kang to the West (The Vegetarian had only been translated into Japanese). The author still views this as the start of a domino effect and takes pride in her work entering the global stage through such an unexpected route.

10. During the right-wing government of Park Geun-hye (2013-2017), Han Kang was blacklisted for her novel Human Acts.

11. After winning the Booker Prize in 2016, Han Kang was eager to retreat from the spotlight. “It’s impossible to care about attention and still write,” she told The Guardian. When the Swedish Academy called her a second time following the Nobel announcement, her voice reportedly sounded terrified.

12. The award came just hours after Hangul Day, a holiday celebrating the Korean alphabet created in 1443 by King Sejong’s court to enable the common people to read and write. Before Hangul, only the nobility could read and write in Chinese. Critics of the new alphabet mockingly called it amkeul (meaning women’s script) because it was so easy to learn.

13. The writer suffers from debilitating migraines. She said the migraines are “always making me humble, helping me realize I’m mortal and vulnerable.” Han Kang’s literature often aspires to evoke silence.