Han River Water Speech: "Literature Opposes All Acts That Destroy Life"

"Reading and writing literary works is inevitably an act of opposing all actions that destroy life."

Han Kang, the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, expressed these remarks at the Nobel Prize award ceremony banquet held on the 10th (local time) at the Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall. Towards the end of the banquet, Han Kang moved to the center of the hall and spoke for about four minutes. She once again emphasized the point she made in her Nobel Prize commemorative lecture on the 7th, that we are all connected through language. "Even on the darkest nights, language asks what we are made of, language insists on imagining from the perspective of people living on this planet, and language connects us to each other."

Novelist Han Kang, the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, is delivering her acceptance speech at the Nobel Prize award ceremony banquet held at the Blue Hall in the Stockholm City Hall on the 10th (local time).
Photo by Yonhap News

Han Kang shared an experience from her childhood when she empathized with others while taking shelter from the rain, likening it to the act of writing.

"I remember when I was eight years old, coming back from an afternoon math class when suddenly a heavy rain poured down, and I took shelter under the eaves of a building with other children. Across the street, I saw people taking shelter under the eaves of a similar building, and it felt as if I was looking into a mirror. Watching the rain fall and feeling my arms and legs getting wet, at that moment I suddenly understood. The people sheltering from the rain beside me and all those sheltering across the street were each living as 'I'. It was a wondrous moment, experiencing countless first-person perspectives,"

The banquet, which started at 7 p.m., lasted over four hours with performances interspersed between meals, attended by about 1,200 people including the King, the Prime Minister, and officials from the Swedish Academy and other awarding institutions.

Han Kang entered the banquet hall with Christopher O'Neill, the son-in-law of the Swedish King, and enjoyed the banquet seated diagonally opposite the King. Laureates are allowed to invite acquaintances to the banquet, so representatives from Korean publishing companies were also present.

The banquet began at 7 p.m., and prior to that, Han Kang received the Nobel Prize in Literature as the 121st laureate overall and the 18th woman at the award ceremony held at the Stockholm Concert Hall starting at 4 p.m.