Han Kang, South Korea's first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was slow to secure global acclaim, getting her first big international prize nine years after her best-known novel was published,

A uthor Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her “intense poetic prose” on Oct. 10, per a press release by The Royal Swedish Academy.

A slow-burning international literary star who has won multiple awards in South Korea and Europe, Han is the first Asian woman and the first South Korean writer to win the Nobel literature prize. She was awarded for books, including “The Vegetarian” and “Human Acts,” that explore the pain of being human and the scars of Korea’s turbulent history.