SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans reacted with joy and astonishment on Thursday after learning that homegrown writer Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in literature, an unexpected moment that stoked national pride about the country’s growing cultural influence.

Han Kang, South Korea's first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was slow to secure global acclaim, getting her first big international prize nine years after her best-known novel was published,

Han Kang is the author of novels including Human Acts, Greek Lessons, Your Cold Hands, The Wind Blows, The Vegetarian and more. Her stories are boundary-defying, provocative, sensual, visceral and often shocking.