South Korea’s Nobel laureate refuses to hold a celebratory press conference because of ongoing wars

ANKARA

South Korean writer Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, declined to hold a celebratory press conference on Friday, citing the simmering global tragedies of the Ukraine-Russia war and conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Han’s father, Han Seung-won, 85, himself a renowned novelist, delivered his message during a press conference at the Han Seung-won Literary School in Jangheung, Jeolla Province on Friday of the South, Korea Times reported.

“(Han) said to me, ‘With the war escalating and people being killed every day, how can we have a celebration or a press conference?’ He said he will not hold any press conference,” he said.

“Her perspective has changed from being a writer living in Korea to a global consciousness (as a writer). I, however, couldn’t shake the feeling of being the father of an awardee living in Korea, so I finish holding this press conference,” he added.

Han also discouraged his father from organizing a celebratory reception at the literary school.

“I was planning to have a party here for the local people, but my daughter told me not to. She said, ‘Please don’t celebrate while you’re witnessing these tragic events,'” he said, referring to -se in the two wars.

Han was recognized for “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical trauma and exposes the fragility of human life,” the Nobel Committee for Literature announced Thursday.

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

He began his career in 1993, and his “international breakthrough came with the novel The Vegetarian”, first published in 2007, which “portrays the violent consequences that occur when its protagonist Yeong- hye refuses to submit to the rules of food intake.”

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