STOCKHOLM: Author Han Kang on Thursday became the first South Korean to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for her work exploring the correspondence between mental and physical torment as well as historical events.

A short story writer and novelist, Han is best known for her book “The Vegetarian”, which was her major international breakthrough and won the Man Booker Prize in 2016.

Han, 53, was honoured with the Nobel “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” the Swedish Academy said.

She is one of only 18 women to receive the literature Nobel out of 121 laureates — though the Academy has made strides in that regard, crowning nine women in the past two decades.

The Academy has long been criticised for the overrepresentation of Western white men authors among its picks.

Han’s win surprised prize-watchers, not having featured in the speculation in the run-up to the announcement. “This is a very rich and complex oeuvre that spans many genres,” Academy member Anna-Karin Palm told reporters.

“Han Kang writes this really intense lyrical prose that is both tender and brutal and sometimes slightly surreal,” she said.