Major bookstores in South Korea are witnessing a significant surge in sales of Han Kang’s works following the announcement of her Nobel Prize in Literature.
On Friday morning, a crowd had already formed outside the Kyobo Bookstore in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, before it opened its doors. Once business began at 9:30 AM, Han’s books flew off the shelves, leaving the special display set up to honor her award completely empty.
By around 10:30 AM, the shelves had been restocked with her titles, and the area in front of the display, as well as outside the bookstore, was teeming with people eager to purchase her works.
The websites of major retailers like Kyobo Bookstore and Yes24 even experienced service outages and delays due to the overwhelming demand.
On the real-time bestseller lists for both Kyobo Bookstore and Yes24, Han Kang held the top positions. In less than half a day, over 130,000 copies of her books had been sold across the two platforms, leading to many titles going on backorder due to the rush of orders.
According to data from Yes24, all ten spots on the real-time bestseller list were claimed by Han Kang’s books immediately following the Nobel announcement. Notable sales spikes included Human Acts, which rose 784 times; The Vegetarian, which increased 696 times; and We Do Not Part, which skyrocketed 3,422 times compared to the previous day.
By Friday, just one day after the award announcement, five of Han Kang’s works were among the top ten on the overall bestseller list. Yes24’s rankings reflect data from the previous seven days, and the explosive sales in just a few hours propelled her books onto the weekly bestseller list.
In the real-time bestseller list of Kyobo Bookstore, her acclaimed The Vegetarian was followed by her other titles, occupying the second to ninth spots: Human Acts, We Do Not Part, The White Book, Greek Lessons, I Put the Evening in the Drawer, The Vegetarian (Revised Edition), Human Acts (E-book), and The Essentials: Han Kang.
