[Lee Kyong-hee] True blessing from Han Kang’s Nobel Prize

The news of Han Kang being awarded the Nobel Prize in literature carried me to the winter of 1970, when I started my journalism career at The Korea Times. My tasks included assisting the managing editor, who was creating the Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards, the first of its kind.

In considering the more than 50 years that have transpired for Korean literature -- and Korean culture at that -- it may be said that the Nobel Prize is a crowning achievement for one Korean and a watershed for all Koreans. Yet another building block in the nation’s soft power -- and it is not entirely happenstance.

The translation award project was motivated by the 1968 Nobel Prize bestowed on Japanese novelist Yasunari Kawabata, his country’s first. Kawabata had partnered with Edward Seidensticker, an eminent American scholar and translator of classical and modern Japanese literature. His translations of Kawabata’s novels were instrumental in prompting international recognition.

It was obvious that Korean literary works also required high-quality translations to reach an international audience.

At advisory committee meetings of renowned literature professors and translators, even basic matters such as defining the period of modern Korean literature were covered. When entries started coming in, I made a catalogue of them. Folk themes prevailed during the initial years -- there was a widespread notion that “what is most local can be most universal.”

Until that time, Korean literary translation had barely been a labor of love among a handful of devoted individuals, whether Korean or foreign. Translating was predominantly conveying these works into English. Among the most active foreign translators were Christian missionaries from English-speaking countries, who found a personal hobby or a missionary vocation in translating Korean literary works.

Then came US Peace Corps volunteers. Hundreds of the young men and women who were fluent in Korean, chose to stay on after completing their assignments. Some made notable contributions in literary translation, though these were personal endeavors still with little institutional support.

Entering the 1990s, financial assistance began coming from the public and private sector. For example, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, a public entity affiliated with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, has subsidized the translation and publication of more than 2,100 works of fiction in 44 languages since 2001. This funding was a sea change, indeed.

Currently energizing the budding overseas markets for Korean literature is a whole new generation of translators from many countries. They study Korean and choose translating Korean literary works as a career. The Hallyu craze in popular culture obviously plays a role in spreading interest in Korean language and literature. Deborah Smith from the UK is part of this cohort.

Smith reportedly studied Korean on her own and read a Korean edition of “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang while she was undertaking her Ph.D. at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Transfixed by the uncommon story and vivid, lyrical prose, Smith attempted to translate it but was not yet fluent enough to capture Han’s style. She tried again a year later and sent a 10-page sample to a British publisher, who agreed to publish the novel.

Smith’s rendition of “The Vegetarian” in English was the springboard to major international recognition for Han. It led to the International Booker Prize in 2016. Smith went on to translate four more novels by Han, contributing decisively to the expansion of the global audience for Han's work and eventually earning the recent recognition by the Swedish Academy.

Han Kang’s novels can captivate readers anywhere with her “intense poetic prose.” Her painful exploration of human suffering, delivered in finely crafted, mysteriously serene narratives, resonates with her profound compassion and implicit belief in redemption.

Han probes human suffering and invites readers to join her in confronting the uncomfortable scenes of historical traumas and fragile human life. Through her three-decade writing career, her observation has shifted from personal traumas to social traumas and then to the traumas inflicted by state violence. “Human Acts” and “We Do Not Part” (an English edition is expected in January) delve into the pain and torment of two massacres committed by the military under government orders: in Gwangju in May 1980, and on Jeju Island in 1948-1949, respectively.

Since the Nobel Prize announcement on Oct. 10, Han has avoided the limelight, even declining a press conference. Her father, Han Seung-won, a well-known novelist himself, told reporters that the new Nobel laureate said, “Given the wars going on and people dying every day, how can I celebrate and hold a joyous press conference?”

The celebration of her literary brilliance aside, therefore, the ultimate significance of Han’s Nobel win will lie in the realization of humanity. She once said, “The last line of defense by which human beings can remain human is the complete and true perception of another’s suffering, which wins out over all biases.”

The world will listen attentively to Han’s message in her acceptance speech to be delivered at the award ceremony on Dec. 10. If her words can warm the hearts of people toward their fellow human beings suffering violence around the world -- from Gaza to Ukraine to North Korea -- it will be a true blessing.

Lee Kyong-hee

Lee Kyong-hee is a former editor-in-chief of The Korea Herald. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.