Acclaimed South Korean writer Han Kang's novel "I Do Not Bid Farewell" has won France's Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature.

The award's review committee presented the prize for "I Do Not Bid Farewell" on Thursday, citing the writer's "restrained expression and the universality of its themes."

Han, who did not attend the ceremony due to her schedule, sent her acceptance speech, saying the book is about people who have decided not to bid farewell and that they light candles under the sea in the depths of the night. She expressed hopes that we, like them, never stop believing in the flickering light.”

"I Do Not Bid Farewell" tells the tragedy of a civilian massacre that broke out on South Korea's southernmost Jeju Island in 1948 from the perspective of three women.

Since 2017, the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts has given the annual award to works of Asian literature that have been published in French translation. In 2018, South Korean Hwang Sok-yong received the prize for his novel "At Dusk."

Its French translation published last August titled, "Impossibles adieux," won the prestigious Prix Medicis for foreign literature three months later.