– When the Nobel Prize for Literature was in Morges
Korean writer Han Kang, honored today by the Swedish Academy, was invited in 2023 to Livre sur les quais, for “Impossible farewells”.
Published today at 5:28 p.m.
Before the Nobel Prize, Han Kang already received the prestigious Booker Prize.
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In 2023, Le livre sur les quais à Morges welcomed, without knowing it yet, not only Jean-Baptiste Andrea, who will be elected three months later at Goncourt 2023 with “Veiller sur elle”, but also Han Kang, crowned this Wednesday with the Nobel Prize for Literature. The author then arrived from Korea, invited by Adélaïde Fabre, programmer of the meeting, in connection with the release of the French translation of her novel “Impossible adieux” by Grasset. A novel that Adélaïde Fabre fell in love with. It also appeared in the nuggets of the 2023 edition, whichAdélaïde Fabre was kind enough to be selected for “24 Heures” before the start of the meeting, noting “a novel marked with delicacy about friendship and mourning, where the power of literature brings to the surface a buried traumatic past”. The book deals with a difficult theme: the massacre in 1948-1949 of 30,000 people on the island of Jeju, in the south of South Korea.
Han Kang in Morges at the Book on the Quays, in 2023.
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The poet and writer Han Kang, who won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2016 for “The Vegetarian”, is better known in the Anglo-Saxon world. “It was its publisher Joachim Schnerf who drew my attention to this title, from April 2023,” notes Adélaïde Fabre. This was a great discovery for me. I am very happy that she won the Nobel Prize, because what she strives to build through her books on the violence of history is very strong. In “Impossible Farewells,” she treats this theme in a delicate and poetic style.”
Meeting with the public in Morges
Last year, Han Kang arrived in Morges directly from South Korea. “She began her meetings in Europe in Switzerland. She was a little apprehensive, but after the event she was delighted with this meeting with the public. She signed a lot of books,” remembers the programmer. The author also participated in two meetings, one with French-speaking authors on “The traumas of history”, the other as part of the English-speaking program.
The writer is winner of the 2023 Foreign Medici Prize, and considered today as the greatest Korean author. “The publication of each of his books constitutes an event in his country and abroad,” notes Grasset, welcoming the choice of the Swedish Academy.
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