n The Witch of Blackbird Pond, American author Elizabeth George Speare refers to October as the month when “any wonderful unexpected thing might be possible.” Every October, the Swedish Academy takes it upon itself to reaffirm our belief in this claim when it announces the Nobel Prize for Literature.

As per convention, the winner is, unsurprisingly, a surprise. The aura of secrecy surrounding the Nobel Committee’s decision doesn’t prevent media outlets and litterateurs across the globe from indulging in an annual guessing game. Any amount of speculation frenzy proves to be futile as it is difficult to predict who the recipient of the prestigious award will be.

This form of annual guesswork isn’t a meaningless endeavour as it offers an assorted ‘wish list’ of potential winners from critics, readers and litterateurs. Such perceptions are predictably fuelled by an author’s global literary reputation. However, the Swedish Academy’s decisions aren’t swayed by these considerations alone. The Nobel Prize for Literature isn’t a popularity contest or just another means of honouring members of the established literary elite. Recipients of the award may belong to the charmed circles of the literati insofar that they have bagged notable awards, but they aren’t always in the mainstream. On the contrary, some of these authors possess a potent creative voice that deserves to be better known.

When the Swedish Academy conferred the Nobel Prize for Literature on South Korean novelist Han Kang in early October, litterateurs across the world rejoiced at the sheer unpredictability of the decision. This year’s winner has the rare distinction of being the first South Korean, as well as the first female Asian, writer to win the award. The decision has, therefore, been viewed as an attempt by the Nobel Committee to lift the veil of Euro-centrism that has shrouded its decisions over the years. This isn’t a path-breaking accomplishment for which the committee deserves to be inordinately praised. In fact, the Swedish Academy tends to eschew its perceived Eurocentric leanings by occasionally choosing a non-European author as the recipient of the literary prize. Be it a sincere gesture or an attempt to assert the global relevance of the award, the decision provides a much-needed respite from the purportedly Western focus of the esteemed Nobel Committee.

Kang’s status as a non-Anglophone writer has also been viewed as a cause for celebration. While this is an encouraging trend, it isn’t an entirely new one. Over the last three years, the Nobel Committee has selected winners who write in French, Norwegian and Korean, respectively. At the same time, the emphasis on non-Anglophone writers can’t undermine the fact that nearly a third of the 121 Nobel laureates in literature have written in English. In recent years, the Swedish Academy has selected an Anglophone poet and essayist from America as well as an English novelist of East African descent as winners.

In The Vegetarian, a homemaker and graphic designer named Yeong-hye stops eating meat after she is troubled by nightmares pertaining to animal slaughter.

The perceived hegemony of English has undoubtedly remained intact, even though the Nobel Committee has made efforts to resist its overpowering influence. Kang’s victory is arguably the most recent attempt to counter the dominance of the English language. Conversely, her win has also been viewed as yet another reminder of the surging global popularity of South Korean popular culture. Over the decades, K-Pop anddramas such as Squid Games have strengthened South Korea’s soft power. However, it is rather simplistic to view Kang’s literary output as part of a cultural phenomenon that is essentially an economic asset for the state. Kang’s work is transgressive.She bravely confronts the problematic aspects of the social and political fabric in South Korea, including its patriarchal underpinnings and its chequered history.

In The Vegetarian, a novel which brought her considerable recognition among literary circles in the West, a homemaker and graphic designer named Yeong-hye stops eating meat after she is troubled by nightmares pertaining to animal slaughter. Her family vehemently resist her decision and react in a drastic manner that bears horrific consequences for themselves and Yeong-hye. A veritable tour de force, The Vegetarian is a haunting reminder of how the mind and the body protest against unwanted surveillance in private affairs. Allegorical in its scope, the novel examines the gendered nature of violence and the complex ways in which people can become each other’s adversaries.

The Vegetarian is possibly a quieter performance than Human Acts, which draws upon the Gwangju Uprising, a series of student-led protests that erupted in South Korea after a coup in May 1980. Critics believe Human Acts is Kang’s “most representative work”. The novel delves into the delicate strands of history that have been deliberately glossed over by the state. Kang was even briefly blacklisted for casting a revealing light on inconvenient historical truths inHuman Acts. Despite her enviable ability to speak truth to power, Kang hasn’t emerged as a voice of dissent in the South Korean context and is, in fact, admired by readers in her country.

After the Swedish Academy declared her the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Kang has become increasingly more popular than she was before. Fuelled by a celebratory spirit, her books have been flying off the shelves at a rapid pace. Soon after the prize was announced, Kang has urged her fans not to celebrate her victory with fanfare in light of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Be that as it may, this is a notable triumph, even if it marks a temporary reprieve from the eurocentric values espoused by the Swedish Academy. Intriguingly, Kang wasn’t among the key South Korean contenders for the Nobel Prize. In fact, the local literary intelligentsia expected either the poet Ko Un or novelist Hwang Sok-Yong to win the coveted award.

Now in her fifties, Kang is significantly younger than the other two Korean writers and has been writing for a little over thirty years. By opting for a relatively young laureate, the Nobel Committee has set a powerful and encouraging precedent. It remains to be seen whether the Swedish Academy will uphold this precedent in subsequent years.

In the coming months or years, more of Kang’s work will be widely rendered into English and savoured by millions of readers. At this critical juncture, the publishing industry in the West must view her Nobel win as a sign that more creative voices in various Asian languages need to be brought into the limelight.

The reviewer is a freelance journalist and the author of  No Funeral for Nazia