Nobel Prize in literature awarded to South Korean author Han Kang

South Korean author Han Kang poses for the media during a news conference in Seoul, South Korea (Lee Jin-man/AP)

The Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to South Korean author Han Kang for what the Nobel committee called “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.

Mats Malm, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee, announced the prize in Stockholm on Thursday.