South Korean writer Han Kang, this year’s Nobel laureate in literature, said she is deeply shocked by the news of a martial law situation unfolding in the country in the year 2024.

At a press conference held in Stockholm on Friday to commemorate her win, Han said she hopes the nation will not return to a time in its past when control was enforced by muzzling people through military force or coercion.

Han, whose 2014 novel “Human Acts” deals with the 1980 Gwangju pro-democracy uprising after military dictator Chun Doo-hwan imposed martial law, said the difference between that and the latest martial law incident is that everyone watched this situation unfold through livestreams.

The 54-year-old writer said she could sense the sincerity and bravery of people who tried to stop the armed soldiers with their bare hands and bid farewell to the soldiers as if they were their own sons as the troops withdrew from the National Assembly.

Han said literature is necessary today as it is an act of continually exploring the inner worlds of others, while also delving into one’s inner self, a process that leads to the cultivation of the power within. 

Han, the first South Korean Nobel laureate in literature and also the first Asian woman to attain the honor, is set to attend the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm on Tuesday.