Interview with the 2024 literature laureate Han Kang, recorded on 6 December 2024 during Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden.

What influence did your family have on your interest in writing? 

Han Kang: My father is a writer as well. The most important thing was I could grow up with the books because my house was like a little library. We were not rich and we didn’t have any proper furniture, just books. Windows, doors and books. So with these circumstances, I could really explore the books and which I would like to read. As for the influence in writing, everyone has his or her own moment to want to write or to want to become a writer. So I don’t think that the moment was related to my father. It was just on my own. 

What did books mean to you as a child? 

Han Kang: I moved a lot when I was a child and I moved schools a lot as well. When you move, it takes time to make friends. For me, it took always about a month. So for a month I just came back home and I felt I was protected by all the books. Then when I made eventually new friends and I invited my friends – still, books were like my constant friends. For me, books were collective. It’s not like this book is my friend, or that book is my special friend. All the books were my collective friends. 

What made you decide to become a writer? 

Han Kang: Obviously, I enjoyed reading so much since my childhood. But I remember when I was 14 years old, I was reading a short story. It was in winter. In that short story, a young man threw sawdust into the stove and the flame lit and the glow was in his eyes. There was something like magic and I could feel the heat and the red of the flame on my skin. So I just decided to become a writer after this magic. 

What are your writing days like? 

Han Kang: My normal writing days, I wake up very early, like 05:30 and I write. My head is the most clear. I stick to my routines, writing and having tea, taking a walk. It’s not very funny, you know? Looking at it from the outside. But inside my head, it’s not boring. So I like it, but maybe, from the outside, it looks like a very simple life. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke. I don’t do parties. Just a simple life. 

Where do your ideas and inspiration come from? 

Han Kang: I don’t know. It just comes. I don’t seek inspiration, I just take a walk and I read books and I meet people. I just want to live fully, that’s all. I try to be present every time. Maybe that’s the way to live life fully.  

What is your experience of having writer’s block? 

Han Kang: It was when I was writing my fourth novel. It was not just writer’s block. It was like I couldn’t read fiction. I couldn’t stand fiction and I couldn’t write fiction. I could just read documentaries. I couldn’t even watch fiction films, so I just watched documentary films. Maybe I was sick and tired of fiction at the time. It was almost one year. I read astrophysics a lot. I was really attracted to that. Maybe I felt that was the opposite of fiction. During that hiatus, I rode my bike a lot. After one year, I was riding my bike along the stream, and suddenly I remembered my fourth novel, which I could write one year ago and I missed it. So I went home and I wanted to write on that novel. I just needed some time.  

Can people work on their imagination? 

Han Kang: Sure. Imagination is the wonderful ability of humans. I like imagining. So when I take a walk, I spend lots of time imagining many things. It is the beautiful part of human life. 

How has writing changed the way you are? 

Han Kang: Writing has changed me a lot. When I start to write one book, I have some questions I want to deal with during writing that book. And after I finish that book, I feel that I have reached the end of the question, and that I have changed because of that process. So after writing one book, I am a different person from the person who started that book. I did this process over and over again and I wrote eight novels. Between the novels I wrote short stories and poems. Every process has changed me. So yeah, I have changed a lot. Looking back to my twenties, I’m a very different person and I like me now much more because I’m a better person. Because I have proceeded, I have moved forward.  

How can we encourage and inspire children to read more? 

Han Kang: Reading books and especially reading literature enables you to enter the depths of another human. It is a very direct way to enter the others’ heart or soul. So it means a lot. With this entering and getting out of it and coming back to yourself over and over again – with this process, the boundary of yourself becomes flexible. You can be more open and mature. I feel it is very important to read literature. 

How do you feel about all the attention your Nobel Prize has generated?  

Han Kang: Well, I’m hiding very well. I hope I can write on without too much attention. I feel inner peace is very important for you to write on. So I try not to be affected by this attention. That’s my very important task at this moment. 

How can people make a positive impact on the world? 

Han Kang: We have this ability to feel the interior of another one. It’s a very precious ability. I believe this ability is important to understand the word and understand the meaning that we are human, and the meaning that we are living together in this world. I believe in this ability to feel the interior of other people, even though they are far away or even though you don’t know them personally. 

Watch the interview

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