Han Kang was born in Gwangju, South Korea, and moved to Seoul at the age of ten. In 1993 she made her literary debut as a poet, and was first published as a novelist in 1994. A participant in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Han has won the Man Booker International Prize (for The Vegetarian), the Yi Sang Literary Award, the Today’s Young Artist Award, and the Manhae Prize for Literature. She currently works as a professor in the department of creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.