The Toji Cultural Foundation said Thursday that British novelist Antonia Susan Byatt is this year's winner of the Pak Kyong Ni Prize which commemorates the late Korean author Pak Kyong-ni.
 
Chairman of the prize committee Kim Woo-chang said that Byatt seeks to reflect elements that are larger and broader than those that exist in human reality in her writing.
 
Kim noted her unique approach as an attempt toward more authentic human understanding. 
 
The 81 year old lectured at the University College London before becoming a full time writer in 1983.
 
She won the Booker Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for her fiction "Possession: A Romance" which is also translated in Korean. 
 
The Pak Kyong Ni Prize was established in 2011 by the Toji Cultural Foundation to commemorate and develop the great spirit of letters of the late author.
 
Previous winners include Choi In-hun, Ludmila Ulitskaya of Russia, Marilynne Robinson of the U.S., Bernhard Schlink of Germany, Israel's Amos Oz and Kenyan Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.
 
This year's seventh award ceremony will take place at the Toji Cultural Center in Wonju, Gangwon Province on October 28th. 
 
The winner takes home 100 million won in prize money.