{"id":220276,"date":"2025-01-21T05:32:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T05:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/21\/a-nobel-laureate-who-mines-her-countrys-nightmares-and-her-own\/"},"modified":"2025-01-21T05:32:16","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T05:32:16","slug":"a-nobel-laureate-who-mines-her-countrys-nightmares-and-her-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/21\/a-nobel-laureate-who-mines-her-countrys-nightmares-and-her-own\/","title":{"rendered":"A Nobel Laureate Who Mines Her Country\u2019s Nightmares, and Her Own"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/21\/multimedia\/21skorea-han-kang-wpzl-promo\/21skorea-han-kang-wpzl-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A Nobel Laureate Who Mines Her Country\u2019s Nightmares, and Her Own\" title=\"A Nobel Laureate Who Mines Her Country\u2019s Nightmares, and Her Own\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Han Kang\u2019s latest novel, a character saws off the tips of two of her fingers in a woodworking accident. Surgeons reattach them but the treatment is gruesome and agonizing. Every three minutes, for weeks on end, a caregiver carefully, dispassionately sinks needles deep into the sutures on each finger, drawing blood, to prevent the fingertips from rotting off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey said we have to let the blood flow, that I have to feel the pain,\u201d the patient tells a friend. \u201cOtherwise the nerves below the cut will die.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In her fiction, Ms. Han has probed at the seams of her country\u2019s historic wounds. She has burrowed into two of South Korea\u2019s darkest episodes: the 1980 massacre <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/06\/world\/asia\/gwangju-massacre-human-acts-han-kang.html\" title=\"\">in the city of Gwangju<\/a>, which crushed a pro-democracy movement, and an earlier, even <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/05\/28\/world\/asia\/south-korea-jeju-massacres.html\" title=\"\">deadlier chapter on Jeju Island<\/a>, in which tens of thousands of people were killed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Han has attracted a wider audience, both at home and abroad, since being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October. An English translation of the novel set on Jeju, \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/17\/books\/review\/han-kang-we-do-not-part.html\" title=\"\">We Do Not Part<\/a>,\u201d is being released this week in the United States, more than three years after it was published in Korean.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Her works on South Korea\u2019s authoritarian past have seemed all the more relevant since December, when the president <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/14\/world\/asia\/south-korea-yoon-detain.html\" title=\"\">briefly imposed martial law<\/a>. He has since been impeached and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/18\/world\/asia\/south-korea-president-yoon-jail-life.html\" title=\"\">arrested<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Han, who has largely shunned the limelight since receiving the Nobel, said in a rare interview that she was still contemplating the recent events. In her books, she said, it was never her intention to turn from one tragic chapter of modern Korean history to another.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But after \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/01\/10\/books\/review\/han-kang-human-acts.html\" title=\"\">Human Acts<\/a>,\u201d the Gwangju novel, was published in 2014, she was plagued by a nightmare. Trying to make sense of its haunting images \u2014 thousands of forbidding, dark tree trunks standing on a snow-covered hill as the sea encroaches \u2014 led her to Jeju, a southern island with aquamarine waters, now mostly known as a balmy travel destination. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It was there that between 1947 and 1954, after an uprising, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"http:\/\/jeju43peace.org\/historytruth\/news-_-global-perspectives\/1-chapter_subsection-introduction\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">an estimated 30,000 people were killed<\/a> by police officers, soldiers and anti-Communist vigilantes, with the tacit backing of the U.S. military. About a third of the victims were women, children or elderly people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In \u201cWe Do Not Part,\u201d the protagonist, Kyungha, a writer who is tormented by a recurring nightmare after publishing a book about a city called \u201cG\u2014,\u201d plods her way through heavy snow engulfing Jeju, on a journey that leads to revelations about multiple generations of a family afflicted by the massacre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Writing about deeply individual encounters with some of South Korea\u2019s painful moments, Ms. Han said, left her feeling profoundly connected to the experiences of victims of atrocities everywhere, and to the people who never stop remembering them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s pain and it is blood, but it\u2019s the current of life, connecting the part that could be left to die and the part that is living,\u201d she said in Korean in a video call from her home in Seoul. \u201cConnecting dead memories and the living present, thereby not allowing anything to die off. That\u2019s not just about Korean history, I thought, it\u2019s about all humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Theresa Phung, the general manager of Yu &amp; Me Books in Manhattan\u2019s Chinatown, said the store had been seeing a level of excitement about Ms. Han\u2019s works, and a surge in sales, that doesn\u2019t always follow a Nobel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cOne of the most impressive traits is her ability to take very specific scenarios and cultural contexts and bring you into that moment, but she\u2019s very aware that those hyperspecific moments are repeats of history,\u201d Ms. Phung said. \u201cWhether you\u2019re reading about what\u2019s happening in Gwangju or around a dinner table, those are lives you see everywhere and problems that you see everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Born in Gwangju to a novelist father, Ms. Han spent a couple of years early in her career as a magazine reporter, while also working on her poetry and short stories. As she was trying to write her first novel at 26, she rented a modest room on Jeju, overlooking the water, from an elderly woman who lived downstairs from her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During a walk to the post office one day, her landlady pointed to a cement wall near a hackberry tree at the center of the village and said matter-of-factly, \u201cThis is where the people were shot and killed that winter.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That memory returned to Ms. Han as she struggled to understand her feverish dreams, which she came to realize were about time and remembrance, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt comes up like that out of nowhere,\u201d she said. \u201cIn effect, everyone in Jeju is a survivor, a witness and a grieving family member.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Han, 54, first rose to broad acclaim among English-speaking readers in 2016 with her novel \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/03\/books\/the-vegetarian-a-surreal-south-korean-novel.html\" title=\"\">The Vegetarian<\/a>.\u201d Its transfixing language and unflinching tale of a housewife\u2019s quiet revolt against violence and patriarchy captured readers around the world, and it won her the International Booker Prize for fiction that year. Her works have been translated into <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ltikorea.or.kr\/en\/board\/notice_en\/boardView.do?bbsIdx=15372\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">28 languages<\/a>. The latest release, \u201cWe Do Not Part,\u201d was translated into English by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In South Korea, Ms. Han had been an established writer of poetry, short stories and novels for more than two decades. But her global success broadened her readership at home, where her deft recounting of Gwangju \u2014 a foundational moment for South Korea\u2019s democracy \u2014 landed her on a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/01\/12\/world\/asia\/south-korea-president-park-blacklist-artists.html\" title=\"\">blacklist<\/a> of authors and other cultural figures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She speaks, as in her books, with the discipline of a poet, choosing each word and phrase with deliberation and care. Kim Seon-young, who edited the Korean version of \u201cHuman Acts\u201d and has since become a friend, recalled that Ms. Han once jokingly told her that if her plane crashed, Ms. Kim was forbidden to change a syllable they\u2019d disagreed about, even if the grammar was slightly off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Han\u2019s Nobel, the first for a South Korean author, has been celebrated like an Olympic feat, with her books selling out, giant banners around the country congratulating her and throngs of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yna.co.kr\/view\/PYH20241011129300013\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">TV cameras flocking<\/a> to the neighborhood bookstore in Seoul that she had quietly run for six years. Her son, who is in his 20s, felt so besieged by the attention that he asked her not to mention him in interviews, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since receiving the prize, she has been trying to get back to her quiet life of writing, mostly in a sunlit room with wooden beams looking out over a small yard. She said a scant snow was fluttering down, dusting the wildflowers she planted last year, which had bloomed white before shriveling in a cold snap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cBeing able to stroll around freely and to observe how people live, under a degree of anonymity, free to write without any burdens, that\u2019s the best environment for a writer,\u201d Ms. Han said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Nobel came during another tumultuous period for South Korea, which has yet to come to a conclusion, and which looked at one point as if it could result in bloodshed. Two days before Ms. Han left for Sweden for the ceremony, President Yoon Seok Yul <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/03\/world\/asia\/south-korea-martial-law.html\" title=\"\">declared martial law<\/a> and sent armed troops into the National Assembly \u2014 something that hadn\u2019t happened since the time of the Gwangju massacre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Han said she watched the developments unfold, on edge, until the National Assembly repealed the martial law decree in the early morning hours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe memories of \u201979 and \u201980, whether they experienced it directly or indirectly, they knew it should not be repeated, and that\u2019s why they took to the streets in the middle of the night,\u201d she said, referring to the lawmakers and protesters who resisted Mr. Yoon\u2019s decree. \u201cIn that way, the past and present are connected.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/21\/world\/asia\/han-kang-jeju-book.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Han Kang\u2019s latest novel, a character saws off the tips of two of her fingers in a woodworking accident. Surgeons reattach them but the treatment is gruesome and agonizing. Every three minutes, for weeks on end, a caregiver carefully, dispassionately sinks needles deep into the sutures on each finger, drawing blood, to prevent the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/21\/multimedia\/21skorea-han-kang-wpzl-promo\/21skorea-han-kang-wpzl-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[168170,165576,14905,173365,173363,173366,78986,29940,88617,37509,173364,137131,1512,169383],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220278,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220276\/revisions\/220278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}