[HN Gopher] South Korean Author Han Kang Wins Nobel Prize
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South Korean Author Han Kang Wins Nobel Prize
Author : ricardoplouis
Score : 56 points
Date : 2024-10-10 14:26 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aljazeera.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aljazeera.com)
| bnchrch wrote:
| Figure I'd pull an arbitrary quote from Han Kang for this.
| Translated obviously
|
| > "There is none of us whom life regards with any partiality.
| Sleet falls as she walks these streets, holding this knowledge
| inside her. Sleet that leaves cheeks and eyebrows heavy with
| moisture. Everything passes." - Han Kang
| Horffupolde wrote:
| Korean existentialism reinvented?
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| Everything passes but also remains unchanged.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| its very sad that asian prose translates so terribly into
| english
| curiousllama wrote:
| Even knowing no asian languages, I can just feel something
| missing, especially in the first sentence there
| qart wrote:
| I don't think that has anything to do with the continent.
| People like Haruki Murakami and Liu Cixin have achieved
| immense reader-bases with their English translations.
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| It probably has to do with linguistic distance though. It
| is safe to assume that Dutch to English translation loses
| much less in nuance than Korean to English.
| kijin wrote:
| It's not just linguistic distance. A good literary
| translator needs to really understand of the source
| material, with all of its cultural context and multiple
| possible interpretations, and somehow recreate the same
| effect in the target language.
|
| This requires not only linguistic fluency but also a deep
| understanding of both cultures, as well as the literary
| traditions of both. If an English author makes a subtle
| allusion to a passage from Shakespeare, for example, how
| do you translate that nuance to a language that hasn't
| had Shakespeare?
|
| I suppose it's much easier to achieve this between Dutch
| and English, than between Korean and English. The pool of
| people who move about freely between the latter is much
| smaller, for both geographical and historical reasons.
| rlpb wrote:
| You've hit the nail on the head and I wish I could give
| you ten upvotes.
|
| A different example I sometimes use is the task of
| translating a children's book that has "busy bees" in it.
| The illustrations show bees being busy. The story might
| even resolve around that to some extent. But another
| reason the bees are busy is that "busy" sounds like the
| buzzing sound they make. So what does one do when
| translating this into a language where the word for the
| regular meaning of "busy" does not sound like "buzz"?
| Whatever one does, something must be lost in the
| translation.
|
| I have tried and failed to translate into my ancestral
| language the books I read to my children for exactly this
| reason. Another issue is that the specific choices of
| foods, animals and so forth are awkward to translate
| smoothly, but they are pictured so I cannot change them.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I read both and the style is tedious, especially the
| dialogues, and I can only assume it's a translation thing.
| jajko wrote:
| Have to agree, 3 body problem is fascinating from
| technological future fantasy perspective, but high
| quality reading overall in English it was not. Shallow
| characters, very pro-china and anti-whole-western-world
| black&white mindset that modern free world grew away long
| time ago.
|
| Had to force myself reading to the end of trilogy, above
| goes into overdrive.
| kelipso wrote:
| > black&white mindset that modern free world grew away
| long time ago
|
| Don't even know what to say. I am not sure we live in the
| same world lol.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| You read a pop sci fi book and are surprised when you get
| pop sci fi? Chinese culture tends to place much more
| emphasis on prose in general in pop books in my
| experience but you picked one of the worst examples of
| that. That series is very strongly influenced by western
| sci fi culture so I find it really funny that you use it
| as an example of chinese culture being worse.
| yongjik wrote:
| And vice versa. So many English works translated to Korean
| read like chewing sand.
|
| It doesn't help that books don't sell well in Korea and
| translators are poorly paid. Often you can literally see "Oh
| the original English word must be X, because it doesn't make
| sense and the translator just used the more popular meaning
| of the word!"
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Is there a better, and actually insightful quote from her that
| we should know about? Because this is the sort of writing you'd
| expect from an emo 6th grader, not a Nobel prize winner. "Life
| isn't fair, nothing lasts forever" isn't exactly genius level
| stuff.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| >> "There is none of us whom life regards with any
| partiality."
|
| That means the opposite of "Life isn't fair". Partiality -
| unfair bias in favor of one thing or person compared with
| another; favoritism.
|
| She's written, in that quote, that life _is_ fair.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Life is inherently unfair because you don't get to choose
| the circumstances in which you are born. Sure, you can
| argue that after that point the universe doesn't give a
| crap about you, but the starting point matters more than
| anything else. That's why I regard her quote as surface
| level and childish.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| The point is that it goes equally for everyone. No one
| gets to choose the circumstances they're born into.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > Life is inherently unfair
|
| If you want to complain about life being unfair like "an
| emo 6th grader" that's your choice, I was just pointing
| out that she wrote the opposite of that. Your original
| comment appeared to equate her statement with "life is
| unfair" when that was the opposite of what she wrote (as
| it was translated, at least). Critique her writing all
| you want, but critique what she wrote, not what she
| didn't.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Life is the full encompassing situation you are in.
| Living is what happens while you're alive. This isn't
| hard, and that prose is banal regardless of how you want
| to argue.
| summerlight wrote:
| I don't think she is best known for a beautiful, insightful
| writing styles. To understand this case better, you probably
| want to understand the modern history of S. Korea, especially
| the connection between her book "Human acts" and the Gwangju
| massacre.
|
| EDIT: Actually Nobel Committee's bibliography does a good job
| on her works.
|
| https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/bio-
| biblio...
| bobosha wrote:
| am i the only relieved that for once a non-AI human has won the
| nobel?
| diggan wrote:
| I must have missed something big, when did a AI human win the
| Nobel prize?
| dhairya wrote:
| It's in reference to the Physics prize going to Hinton and
| Hopfield for "for foundational discoveries and inventions
| that enable machine learning with artificial neural
| networks." and the Chemistry prize to Google DeepMind's
| founder Demis Hassabis, alongside with John Jumper (Google
| Deepmind) and David Baker for Alpha fold. Both prizes were
| given to significant figures in the AI space or use of AI
| applications.
| thenobsta wrote:
| I was pretty relieved to see that chatGPT didn't win literature
| prize. It needs to refine it's imagery and self expression a
| little more.
| shmel wrote:
| I am fairly certain that as an AI language model, it can't
| win any prize =)
| logical42 wrote:
| Well I guess I'm never going to be google-able again.
| logical42 wrote:
| I am tempted to write a book called "The carnivore" though.
| carabiner wrote:
| I think the Nobels, especially in the arts, have lost their
| relevance, similar to the Michelin restaurant awards and the
| Oscars for film. We now know they're from a select group (of
| Norwegians in this case) with certain tastes no more noteworthy
| or transcendent than any of ours. The world has too much culture
| and achievement today to be marked by one group of awards like
| this per year. We have "Oscar bait," but I think the phenomenon
| of "Nobel bait" has been around for a long time.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_bait
| locuscoeruleus wrote:
| > We now know they're from a select group (of Norwegians in
| this case) with certain tastes no more noteworthy or
| transcendent than any of ours.
|
| Only the nobel peace prize is handed out by Norway. What would
| you consider an example of nobel bait?
| mongol wrote:
| Obama getting the peace prize after less than a year as
| president. He had not done anything extraordinary related to
| peacse and he seemed mostly embarassed to receive it given
| that
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| How is that relevant to the literature prize?
| pie420 wrote:
| what did obama do that was considered nobel bait? he had no
| idea they were about to give it to him. And really, him
| getting the nobel is probably more for signifying the end
| of racism since america finally elected a black president,
| but we all know how that turned out.
| carabiner wrote:
| Ok, the physics prize is given by swedes. The overall point
| stands though; there's a massive nationalist bias to the
| Nobels that is well known: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-
| Sweden-have-so-many-Nobel-lau...
|
| I used to think that Nobel committee was made up of
| researchers around the world, and the Nobel dudes would just
| present it for a ceremony. Nope, it's really just people from
| one college who are picking these prizes.
| ojl wrote:
| No, it's not people from one college. The members of the
| different committees are professors or scientists from
| various Swedish universities, and the Royal Swedish Academy
| which gives the awards doesn't not only have Swedish
| members as far as I know.
|
| Edit: It seems the committee for physiology and medicine is
| actually at Karolinska institutet, so in this case it was
| one college.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Bob Dylan?
| parodysbird wrote:
| I enjoy Oscar bait films and Michelin star restaurants. Oscar
| bait film season (winter) is the main season I look forward to
| going to to the movies, not summer (blockbuster season). But
| it's not some attack on mainstream culture just because there
| are awards for niche/elite/artsy/etc culture. Similarly, just
| because the Nobel for literature goes to a niche literary
| author you don't know/like doesn't demean whatever your reading
| preferences are.
| esjeon wrote:
| > Similarly, just because the Nobel for literature goes to a
| niche literary author you don't know/like doesn't demean
| whatever your reading preferences are.
|
| You know how things work. The media starts to chant about how
| great those winners are, with only a few seriously digging
| into the actual works. They are quickly followed by internet
| trolls who derail every discussion by insisting that these
| are masterpieces certified by big-name committees, claiming
| that we, the lowly masses, must accept the decisions of the
| great authority as the absolute truth of our lives.
|
| Every awards season is like this, and I now hate awards
| parodysbird wrote:
| > They are quickly followed by internet trolls who derail
| every discussion by insisting that these are masterpieces
| certified by big-name committees, claiming that we, the
| lowly masses, must accept the decisions of the great
| authority as the absolute truth of our lives.
|
| Who does this with the Nobel Prize on literature? I've not
| even heard of any of the previous winners on until Bob
| Dylan in 2016.
|
| Even with the Oscars, like who is demeaning the lowly
| masses that they must view as absolute truth that e.g. CODA
| or The Whale or The Power of the Dog etc are masterpieces?
| nottorp wrote:
| They tend to be awarded only to works treating depressing
| subjects. Or to authors in depressing situations.
|
| When was the last time an Oscar or a literature prize (Nobel
| but not only) has been awarded to something funny?
| cafard wrote:
| The lists are curious--did you think of Bergson or Russell as
| men of letters?--and I think that only scholars will have read
| more than a couple of the laureates from any given decade. I
| was interested to see that Mommsen received it.
|
| [Edit: changed "know" to "will have read"]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _similar to the Michelin restaurant awards_
|
| Michelin stars remain coveted and are a sure-fire way for fine-
| dining restaurants to fill their seats.
| pie420 wrote:
| name a more prestigious/better guide (marketing tool) for
| restaurants?
| akaike wrote:
| That's so awesome! My girlfriend read all her books and told me
| how beautifully she writes in Korean.
|
| Definitely well-deserved!
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Official release:
| https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/press-rele...
| simplegeek wrote:
| Is good English translation of her works available? If so, please
| share. I like good prose and want to read and understand how is
| her prose different. Thanks.
| limitedfrom wrote:
| Deborah Smith translated her biggest works (The Vegetarian &
| Human Acts). In fact, her translation arguably single-handedly
| led to Han Kang winning the Man Booker International Prize in
| 2016, which then made her popular outside Korea. The
| translations have been quite popular, but a bit controversial
| as well[0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Smith_(translator)
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