South Korean Author Han Kang Wins Nobel Prize | Hacker News Reader

South Korean Author Han Kang Wins Nobel Prize

aljazeera.com

70 pointsricardoplouis56 comments

Figure I'd pull an arbitrary quote from Han Kang for this. Translated obviously

> “There is none of us whom life regards with any partiality. Sleet falls as she walks these streets, holding this knowledge inside her. Sleet that leaves cheeks and eyebrows heavy with moisture. Everything passes.” - Han Kang

Korean existentialism reinvented?

Everything passes but also remains unchanged.

its very sad that asian prose translates so terribly into english

Even knowing no asian languages, I can just feel something missing, especially in the first sentence there

I don't think that has anything to do with the continent. People like Haruki Murakami and Liu Cixin have achieved immense reader-bases with their English translations.

It probably has to do with linguistic distance though. It is safe to assume that Dutch to English translation loses much less in nuance than Korean to English.

It's not just linguistic distance. A good literary translator needs to really understand of the source material, with all of its cultural context and multiple possible interpretations, and somehow recreate the same effect in the target language.

This requires not only linguistic fluency but also a deep understanding of both cultures, as well as the literary traditions of both. If an English author makes a subtle allusion to a passage from Shakespeare, for example, how do you translate that nuance to a language that hasn't had Shakespeare?

I suppose it's much easier to achieve this between Dutch and English, than between Korean and English. The pool of people who move about freely between the latter is much smaller, for both geographical and historical reasons.

You've hit the nail on the head and I wish I could give you ten upvotes.

A different example I sometimes use is the task of translating a children's book that has "busy bees" in it. The illustrations show bees being busy. The story might even resolve around that to some extent. But another reason the bees are busy is that "busy" sounds like the buzzing sound they make. So what does one do when translating this into a language where the word for the regular meaning of "busy" does not sound like "buzz"? Whatever one does, something must be lost in the translation.

I have tried and failed to translate into my ancestral language the books I read to my children for exactly this reason. Another issue is that the specific choices of foods, animals and so forth are awkward to translate smoothly, but they are pictured so I cannot change them.

I read both and the style is tedious, especially the dialogues, and I can only assume it's a translation thing.

Have to agree, 3 body problem is fascinating from technological future fantasy perspective, but high quality reading overall in English it was not. Shallow characters, very pro-china and anti-whole-western-world black&white mindset that modern free world grew away long time ago.

Had to force myself reading to the end of trilogy, above goes into overdrive.

> black&white mindset that modern free world grew away long time ago

Don't even know what to say. I am not sure we live in the same world lol.

You read a pop sci fi book and are surprised when you get pop sci fi? Chinese culture tends to place much more emphasis on prose in general in pop books in my experience but you picked one of the worst examples of that. That series is very strongly influenced by western sci fi culture so I find it really funny that you use it as an example of chinese culture being worse.

Whoa I never said Chinese culture is worse and I certainly dont think that, why the needless fabulated attack?

I just didnt like the books apart from technological aspects that much, is it that hard to understand and accept that some folks look for more than just wow-what-a-cool-description-of-4D-in-3D?

It was pushed from all directions as something spectacular and well, that bar lies much higher for some, thats all.

I feel like someone who wasn't familar with Chinese history or culture would miss a lot of what was happening in that book. A lot happens that isn't directly explained.

Also depends if you read the version with the cultural revolution scenes in the beginning or in the middle.

> Shallow characters, very pro-china and anti-whole-western-world black&white mindset that modern free world grew away long time ago.

I think you missed the latest news.

And vice versa. So many English works translated to Korean read like chewing sand.

It doesn't help that books don't sell well in Korea and translators are poorly paid. Often you can literally see "Oh the original English word must be X, because it doesn't make sense and the translator just used the more popular meaning of the word!"

> It doesn't help that books don't sell well in Korea and translators are poorly paid.

Maybe that's the problem.

I've seen translated books where you could identify the birth region of the translator based on the words used.

Is there a better, and actually insightful quote from her that we should know about? Because this is the sort of writing you'd expect from an emo 6th grader, not a Nobel prize winner. "Life isn't fair, nothing lasts forever" isn't exactly genius level stuff.

>> "There is none of us whom life regards with any partiality."

That means the opposite of "Life isn't fair". Partiality - unfair bias in favor of one thing or person compared with another; favoritism.

She's written, in that quote, that life is fair.

Life is inherently unfair because you don't get to choose the circumstances in which you are born. Sure, you can argue that after that point the universe doesn't give a crap about you, but the starting point matters more than anything else. That's why I regard her quote as surface level and childish.

The point is that it goes equally for everyone. No one gets to choose the circumstances they're born into.

> Life is inherently unfair

If you want to complain about life being unfair like "an emo 6th grader" that's your choice, I was just pointing out that she wrote the opposite of that. Your original comment appeared to equate her statement with "life is unfair" when that was the opposite of what she wrote (as it was translated, at least). Critique her writing all you want, but critique what she wrote, not what she didn't.

Life is the full encompassing situation you are in. Living is what happens while you're alive. This isn't hard, and that prose is banal regardless of how you want to argue.

I don't think she is best known for a beautiful, insightful writing styles. To understand this case better, you probably want to understand the modern history of S. Korea, especially the connection between her book "Human acts" and the Gwangju massacre.

EDIT: Actually Nobel Committee's bibliography does a good job on her works.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/bio-biblio...

> you probably want to understand the modern history of S. Korea,

"The uprising was violently suppressed by the South Korean military with the approval and logistical support of the United States under Carter administration, which feared the uprising might spread to other cities and tempt North Korea to interfere.

So normal democracy at work. Nothing to see here. /s

Official release: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/press-rele...

That’s so awesome! My girlfriend read all her books and told me how beautifully she writes in Korean.

Definitely well-deserved!

Is good English translation of her works available? If so, please share. I like good prose and want to read and understand how is her prose different. Thanks.

Deborah Smith translated her biggest works (The Vegetarian & Human Acts). In fact, her translation arguably single-handedly led to Han Kang winning the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, which then made her popular outside Korea. The translations have been quite popular, but a bit controversial as well[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Smith_(translator)

It's not like that Han Kang doesn't speak English and Smith butchered her works in secrecy. Han Kang has even explicitly supported the English translation so the "controversy" should be considered ungrounded.

The flip side is that she might not want to criticize the translator (and translations) that brought her the biggest amount of success & fame. Plus, it's possible that the author herself is more comfortable with the amount of "deviation" than some readers and that's a personal preference thing at the end of the day.

It's definitely possible and happened many times for other cases, but she actively worked with the translator in this case and had a good understanding of the resulting English text. Quoting a recent interview [1]:

스미스는 소설을 번역하면서 한강 작가와 계속 의견을 주고 받았다고 전했다. 특히 소설 마지막 부분에 주인공 영혜의 언니 인혜가 한 말, “꿈속에선, 꿈이 전부인 것 같잖아. 하지만 깨고 나면 그게 전부가 아닌 거란 걸 알지…(후략)” 번역을 두고 가장 오랜 시간 의견을 주고 받았다. 스미스는 이를 “surely the dream isn’t all there is?…”로 번역했다.

“‘surely the dream isn’t all there is?’ 하고 영혜에게 말하는 대목에서 (한강) 작가는 인혜의 확신 없는 머뭇거림이 영어권 독자들에게 전달되지 않을 것을 우려했고, 이에 나는 영어의 ‘surely’란 단어가 어째서 확신을 의미하기보다는 오히려 화자가 스스로를 설득하고자 노력하는 인상을 주기 마련인지 설명해야 했다.”

Or in my rough translation:

Smith stated that she kept discussing with Han Kang over the course of translation process. It particularly took the longest amount of time to settle on the translation of words from Inhye, an elder sister of Younghye the protagonist; she translated that as "surely the dream isn’t all there is? [...]".

"Han Kang worried that English readers might not get a hint of Inhye's inconclusive hesitation from that line, so I had to explain her how 'surely' in English rather often conveys sort of self-delusion instead of confidence."

[1] https://www.khan.co.kr/culture/culture-general/article/20241...

Thank you!

Well I guess I'm never going to be google-able again.

I am tempted to write a book called "The carnivore" though.

am i the only relieved that for once a non-AI human has won the nobel?

I must have missed something big, when did a AI human win the Nobel prize?

It's in reference to the Physics prize going to Hinton and Hopfield for "for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks." and the Chemistry prize to Google DeepMind's founder Demis Hassabis, alongside with John Jumper (Google Deepmind) and David Baker for Alpha fold. Both prizes were given to significant figures in the AI space or use of AI applications.

I was pretty relieved to see that chatGPT didn't win literature prize. It needs to refine it's imagery and self expression a little more.

I am fairly certain that as an AI language model, it can't win any prize =)

I think the Nobels, especially in the arts, have lost their relevance, similar to the Michelin restaurant awards and the Oscars for film. We now know they're from a select group (of Norwegians in this case) with certain tastes no more noteworthy or transcendent than any of ours. The world has too much culture and achievement today to be marked by one group of awards like this per year. We have "Oscar bait," but I think the phenomenon of "Nobel bait" has been around for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_bait

> We now know they're from a select group (of Norwegians in this case) with certain tastes no more noteworthy or transcendent than any of ours.

Only the nobel peace prize is handed out by Norway. What would you consider an example of nobel bait?

Obama getting the peace prize after less than a year as president. He had not done anything extraordinary related to peacse and he seemed mostly embarassed to receive it given that

How is that relevant to the literature prize?

what did obama do that was considered nobel bait? he had no idea they were about to give it to him. And really, him getting the nobel is probably more for signifying the end of racism since america finally elected a black president, but we all know how that turned out.

Ok, the physics prize is given by swedes. The overall point stands though; there's a massive nationalist bias to the Nobels that is well known: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Sweden-have-so-many-Nobel-lau...

I used to think that Nobel committee was made up of researchers around the world, and the Nobel dudes would just present it for a ceremony. Nope, it's really just people from one college who are picking these prizes.

No, it’s not people from one college. The members of the different committees are professors or scientists from various Swedish universities, and the Royal Swedish Academy which gives the awards doesn’t not only have Swedish members as far as I know.

Edit: It seems the committee for physiology and medicine is actually at Karolinska institutet, so in this case it was one college.

Bob Dylan?

I enjoy Oscar bait films and Michelin star restaurants. Oscar bait film season (winter) is the main season I look forward to going to to the movies, not summer (blockbuster season). But it's not some attack on mainstream culture just because there are awards for niche/elite/artsy/etc culture. Similarly, just because the Nobel for literature goes to a niche literary author you don't know/like doesn't demean whatever your reading preferences are.

> Similarly, just because the Nobel for literature goes to a niche literary author you don't know/like doesn't demean whatever your reading preferences are.

You know how things work. The media starts to chant about how great those winners are, with only a few seriously digging into the actual works. They are quickly followed by internet trolls who derail every discussion by insisting that these are masterpieces certified by big-name committees, claiming that we, the lowly masses, must accept the decisions of the great authority as the absolute truth of our lives.

Every awards season is like this, and I now hate awards

> They are quickly followed by internet trolls who derail every discussion by insisting that these are masterpieces certified by big-name committees, claiming that we, the lowly masses, must accept the decisions of the great authority as the absolute truth of our lives.

Who does this with the Nobel Prize on literature? I've not even heard of any of the previous winners on until Bob Dylan in 2016.

Even with the Oscars, like who is demeaning the lowly masses that they must view as absolute truth that e.g. CODA or The Whale or The Power of the Dog etc are masterpieces?

They tend to be awarded only to works treating depressing subjects. Or to authors in depressing situations.

When was the last time an Oscar or a literature prize (Nobel but not only) has been awarded to something funny?

The lists are curious--did you think of Bergson or Russell as men of letters?--and I think that only scholars will have read more than a couple of the laureates from any given decade. I was interested to see that Mommsen received it.

[Edit: changed "know" to "will have read"]

> similar to the Michelin restaurant awards

Michelin stars remain coveted and are a sure-fire way for fine-dining restaurants to fill their seats.

name a more prestigious/better guide (marketing tool) for restaurants?

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