The Korea Times
When Korean author Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024, translator Jeong Sang-hyun was studying at the National University of Laos. While he celebrated the news, his fellow students were unfamiliar with the award. That prompted the 53-year-old interpreter to translate and publish Han's novel “Human Acts” in Laos. The project marks the first time a Korean novel has been translated into Lao, aiming to connect the two nations through their shared history of civil conflict rather than through popular culture. “Laos has often only encountered the glamorous image of Korea through popular culture,” Jeong said in a phone interview with the Hankook Ilbo on Wednesday. “I wanted to let them know that Korea also overcame a difficult past to build its current prosperity.” Laos experienced a civil war in the 1960s and 1970s between U.S.-backed royalists and communist forces supported by North Vietnam and the Soviet Union. Jeong believed Han's novel, which questions how humanity survives mass violence, would resonate with Lao readers. Although a Thai translation of the novel
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