Comment | You don’t always have to act ahead of politics, and South Korean Han Kang’s Nobel win shows that

Swedish The Academy maintains its right to remain apolitical. The last time in 2015, you could see a reflection of the world situation in the selection, when someone born in Ukraine, who writes in Russian and lived in Belarus for a long time Svetlana Alexievich won.

Russia had just occupied Crimea, and Aleksievich’s documentary novels show the destructiveness of the use of power, which at worst turns into war, both for the targets of the attack and for the attackers themselves.

So the official Russia took the victory to Aleksievich.

South Korean Han Kang has certainly earned its award. The solution arouses the worst in the northern part of the peninsula.

A special reason for rejoicing in Finland is the selection for the Gummerus publishing house, which took Han Kang to its lists already at the rising stage of his international career, just like last year’s winner, the French by Annie Ernaux.

At this pace, Gummerus is rising to become the home of Nobel writers alongside Tamme, Otava and WSOY.

A year ago I commented on the Norwegian Jon Fosse profit slightly sour Lyudmila Ulitskaya on behalf of. Because naming an old opponent of the Putin regime would have been not only fully justified in writing, but also a reminder that Russian culture is different from the country’s current preconceptions – and especially a cry for humanity as loud as possible.

The Swedish Academy, with its unwaveringly straightforward actions, reminds us all that fortunately there is still such a world where politics does not have to come first.