Han Kang, the first South Korean to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, has sold over a million volumes locally since the announcement, according to shops.
The short story writer and novelist is most known internationally for her Man Booker Prize-winning novel “The Vegetarian,” which was translated into English.
The 53-year-old, who also became the first Asian woman novelist to win the Nobel Prize, was chosen “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” the Swedish Academy announced last week.
Han’s victory has caused a stir in South Korea, with major retail and publishing firm websites failing shortly after it was announced, as tens of thousands hurried to order her books.
As of Wednesday morning, at least 1.06 million copies, including e-books, had been sold since the Nobel announcement last Thursday, according to three major bookstores and online sellers — Kyobo, Aladin, and YES24.
“Han Kang’s books are experiencing unprecedented sales. This is a situation we have never seen before,” Kyobo spokesperson Kim Hyun-jung told AFP.
According to online retailer Aladin, Han’s victory resulted in a startling 1,200-fold increase in sales of her books compared to the same period last year, as well as a significant increase in sales of South Korean literature in general.
According to a statement, “the overall sales of Korean literature increased by more than 12 times compared to the previous year” following her victory.
Sales of two novels. According to Aladin, Han’s interest in the books she just acknowledged reading — “Inventory of Losses” by Judith Schalansky and “Atlas de botanique élémentaire” by Jean-Jacques Rousseau — has also grown.
While Kyobo Book Centre does not have specific data, it does report that Han’s books sold far more than those of other Nobel Prize recipients.
“We have been in the publishing industry for a while, but this whole situation feels very surreal even to some of us,” a Kyobo employee told AFP.
South Koreans have been overjoyed by the news, with Han’s alma mater, Seoul’s Yonsei University, displaying banners that read: “Congratulations to the proud Yonsei alumnus, Han Kang, on winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.”
In her hometown of Gwangju — where a massacre occurred in 1980 that later inspired Han’s acclaimed novel “Human Acts” — a congratulatory banner was hung on a building fired on by a military helicopter at the time.
Local reports said some printing houses had been operating at full capacity on the weekend to meet the demand for Han’s books.
“I’ve never been this busy since I joined the company in 2006,” an Aladin employee told AFP.
“But it’s all been very happy.”