The Nobel Prize in literature was awarded Thursday to South Korean author Han Kang for what the Nobel committee called “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”Mats Malm, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee, announced the prize in Stockholm. Han, 53, won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for “The Vegetarian,” an unsettling novel in which a woman’s decision to stop eating meat has devastating consequences. The literature prize has long faced criticism that it is too focused on European and North American writers of style-heavy, story-light prose. On Wednesday, three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to decode and even design novel proteins were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by the award’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.

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Persons: Han Kang, ” Mats Malm, International Booker, Annie Ernaux of, Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun, John Hopfield, Geoffrey Hinton —, Alfred Nobel Organizations: International, North Locations: Korean, Swedish, Stockholm ., Annie Ernaux of France