Novelist Han Kang was awarded the 7th Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature in France on Thursday (local time) for her novel "I Do Not Bid Farewell." This marks the first time a Korean has received this accolade since Hwang Sok-yong's "At Dusk" in 2018.
The jury for the Guimet Literary Prize selected "I Do Not Bid Farewell" for its "restrained expressiveness and the universality of its theme." The novel explores the pain and healing associated with the Jeju April 3rd Incident. The Emile Guimet Prize is bestowed annually by France's National Museum of Asian Arts Guimet, the largest museum of Asian arts in Europe, to a contemporary Asian literary work published in French. The shortlist for this category also included "The City of Victory" by Salman Rushdie, a British author of Indian origin, and "Horse and Wind" by Japan's Akio Kawasaki.
Han Kang, who could not attend the ceremony due to other commitments, expressed through her publisher, "Like the characters in my novel, I hope we continue to hold onto our belief in the flickering light." "I Do Not Bid Farewell" had previously won the foreign literature category of the Medici Prize, one of France's top four literary awards, in November of the previous year.
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