South Koreans reacted with joy and astonishment on Thursday after learning that homegrown writer Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in literature, an unexpected moment that stoked national pride about the country’s growing cultural influence.

Han Kang, the South Korean winner of the 2024 Nobel prize in literature, made her breakthrough in the English-speaking world with her first translated novel (her third in Korean), The Vegetarian. Published in English in 2015,

Han Kang, South Korea's first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was slow to secure global acclaim, getting her first big international prize nine years after her best-known novel was published,