Major South Korean bookshops ran out of author Han Kang’s books on Friday, as the author’s historic Nobel Prize win sent local publishers’ stock prices through the roof.
Han, a writer of short stories and novels, is the first Asian woman to win a literary award. Her debut English-language novel, “The Vegetarian,” received the Man Booker Prize in 2016. Han is well-known abroad for her work.
According to the Swedish Academy, the 53-year-old was awarded the Nobel Prize “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
Major bookshop websites nationwide crashed shortly after the announcement, which was made late on Thursday in Seoul, as consumers hurried to order her books.
Han’s writings swiftly filled all 10 places on the real-time bestselling list of chain bookshop Kyobo. The firm informed AFP that 60,000 copies of Han’s books had been sold by early Friday, which is 451 times more than it had the day before.
A representative for Kyobo, Kim Hyun-jung, told AFP, “We’re obviously thrilled, and it’s incredible to see so many people wanting to read books all at once.”
“Since there has never been a Nobel Prize-winning work in the Korean language, I think readers are both excited and somewhat unaccustomed to this very happy situation.”
Online book sellers like YES24 and Millie Seojae had their share prices soar on Friday that they reached the daily limit of 30 percent, at which point trading is halted.
A YES24 spokesperson told AFP that almost 80,000 copies of Han’s three books “Human Acts”, “The Vegetarian” and “I Do Not Bid Farewell” had been sold as of Friday morning.
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