Awards ceremony in Stockholm on December 10th
Award-winning lectures related to the work also attracted attention.
Nobel Prize Medal, 24K plating on 18K gold
Strict dress code, traditional clothing allowed
Novelist Han Kang (54) said he would prepare for the Nobel Prize in Literature award ceremony at the Pony Chung Innovation Award ceremony on the 17th. He said, “I will finish the novel I am currently writing and focus on writing the (Nobel Prize) acceptance speech.” The intention is to convey a personal message along with a thank you through the acceptance speech, which usually lasts about 3 to 5 minutes.
The Nobel Prize in Literature ceremony is held every year at a concert hall in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10 (local time), the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the prize’s founder. The 1,800-seat concert hall usually hosts classical performances, but during the Nobel Prize ceremony, it is transformed into an awards ceremony venue with a blue carpet. Except for the Nobel Peace Prize, which is held in Oslo, Norway, winners in all categories receive medals and certificates from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden here. The late former President Kim Dae-jung, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, received the award in Oslo, but Han River receives the Nobel Prize in a different place.
Han Kang receives a gold Nobel Prize medal. The weight is 175g and the diameter is 6.6cm. It was about 200g until 1980, but has decreased since then. It is made of 18K gold and the surface is plated with 24K. The front of the medal is engraved with Nobel’s upper body portrait and the years of his birth and death written in Latin. In the center of the back is a young man writing down the Muse’s song under a laurel tree, and at the bottom is the name of the winner. There is also a Latin phrase meaning ‘Inventions enrich lives made more beautiful by art’. The detailed patterns engraved on the medal differ slightly depending on the award category.
Immediately after the awards ceremony, a celebratory dinner will be held at the nearby Stockholm City Hall Blue Hall. Approximately 1,300 people, including Nobel Prize winners and their families, representatives of the Swedish royal family, government and National Assembly, and 250 students, are expected to attend the dinner. The menu features food representing Scandinavia and will be revealed after 7pm on the day.
The Blue Hole is actually surrounded by red bricks, not blue. It is said that architect Ragnar Ostberg abandoned his original plan to paint the building blue because he fell in love with the red brick color. A huge organ with 12,000 pipes is installed on the front wall of the hall.
The Nobel Prize ceremony also has a strict dress code. In principle, men wear tailcoats and women wear evening dresses. However, it is also allowed to wear each country’s traditional clothing, such as Hanbok. Yasunari Kawabata, a Japanese writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, received the award wearing wafuku, a traditional Japanese attire.
The ‘acceptance speeches’ in which Nobel Prize winners express their feelings capture the essence of language to the extent that there is a saying that it is ‘literature heard by the ears.’ In 1968, at the age of sixty-nine, Kawabata stood at the Nobel Prize ceremony with sparkling white hair. The speech began by quoting a famous poem by senior poet Ryokan. “As a memorial of my life/What will I leave behind/Flowers blooming in spring/Cuckoos crying on the mountain/Maple leaves in fall.” His acceptance speech is said to have left a deep impression of ‘oriental aesthetics’ in mind.
As is customary, awardees will also give lectures. The award must be given at a public lecture within six months after the award. The lecture by Toni Morrison, who became the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, is also talked about for a long time. The speech, which began with the phrase, “Once upon a time, there lived a blind, wise old woman,” received a standing ovation from the audience as it was evaluated as a symbolic expression of the importance of language and the future of literature.
After the announcement of the Nobel Prize selection, Han Kang said through his father, “What kind of party is this when corpses are being carried off to war every day?” Therefore, attention is focused on whether an ‘anti-war message’ will be released through his acceptance speech and lecture.
Reporter Sa Ji-won 4g1@donga.com