Novelist Han Kang Wins Prestigious Italian Literary Award

Novelist Han Kang has won this year's Malaparte Prize, one of Italy's leading literary awards, for her book "Human Acts". 

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The award comes on the heels of Han winning the Man Booker International Prize for her novel "The Vegetarian" in 2016.

The Malaparte Prize is awarded to foreign writers and was established in 1983 in memory of Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957), who is best known for his unclassifiable wartime book "Kaputt".

Previous recipients include Saul Bellow (1984), Nadine Gordimer (1985), Susan Sontag (1992), Michel Tournier (1993) and Julian Barnes (2013).

"Human Acts" depicts the suffering of a teenager during the 1980 Gwangju democratic uprising. It was published in Italy by Adelphi on Sept. 14 in a translation by Milena Zemira Ciccimarra from the English version by Deborah Smith.

The panel of judges took the rare step of obtaining a copy of the book before it was published in Italy. Already 200,000 copies have been sold.

The award ceremony will be held on Oct. 1 on the island of Capri, where Malaparte built a famous house. Han is currently in Europe on a book tour.