Since the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded on Thursday, “Han Kang’s books are having unprecedented sales” in South Korean bookstores, confirming a demand never seen before.
More than a million books by South Korean writer Han Kang, recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, have been sold in South Korea since last week, according to bookstores in the Asian country.
At least 1.06 million booksincluding electronic products, by Han Kang have sold out since he received the Nobel Prize on Thursday, Kyobo, Aladin and YES24, three major South Korean bookstores and online stores, told the France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
“Han Kang’s books are experiencing record sales. This is something we have never seen before.“Kim Hyun-jung, spokesperson for Kyobo, the country’s largest bookstore chain, told AFP.
The 53-year-old novelist, the first Asian woman to win this literary award, was chosen for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
She is best known abroad for the novel. “The Vegetarian”winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2016, which chronicles the radical change in a woman’s eating habits after violent nightmares, with disastrous consequences for her marital life and mental health.
According to new and used book company Aladin, Han Kang increased book sales 1,200 times compared to the same period last year, and South Korean literature sales 12 times.
“I have never been so busy since I joined the company in 2006,” an Aladin employee told AFP.
Source: Observadora
