News brief

Nobel Prize in literature awarded to a South Korean author. The Nobel committee described Han Kang’s work as “intense poetic prose.” Nobel committee chairman Anders Olsson praised Ms. Han’s “physical empathy for the vulnerable, often female lives” of her characters. In winning on Oct. 10, Ms. Han becomes the first South Korean writer to receive the Nobel literature prize. She also becomes the second South Korean national to win a Nobel Prize after a late former president won the peace prize in 2000. The literature prize has long been male-dominated, with just 17 women among its 119 laureates until this year’s award.