Han Kang to open Berlin Philharmonic’s literary event in September

The 2024 Nobel Prize winner in literature Han Kang speaks during a press conference at the Contemporary Culture Center of Barcelona, Spain, April 22. EPA-Yonhap

Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang will take the stage at the Berlin Philharmonic's Chamber Music Hall on Sept. 7 for a book talk launching the orchestra's new literary series for the 2026-27 season.

According to the Philharmonic's website, the event will also be a joint project with the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin, with Han invited as the first guest.

Designed to bring together literature and chamber music, the 90-minute show invites prominent authors to read from and discuss their latest works, while members of the Philharmonic perform chamber pieces chosen to reflect the themes and mood of the writing.

The orchestra said it chose to launch the program with Han as a reflection of the shared qualities between her prose and classical music, both defined less by grand gestures than by precision and resonance.

"Literature, like music, reflects the world and our lives," the orchestra said on its website. "With our new series, Satzwechsel, we place the two in dialogue."

Berlin Philharmonic / Captured from Berlin Philharmonic's website

The appearance marks one of Han's few literary engagements since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024. The author has kept a low public profile following the award.

In April, she participated in a book talk at the Contemporary Culture Center of Barcelona. Last month, the author gave an interview to Vogue magazine discussing violence, literature and the role of artists in the time of crisis.

"Literature imagines. And very vividly, at that. I feel that the power of that vividness is especially necessary in times like these," she told the magazine.

"Of course, feeling vividly is more painful than not feeling at all. But I think we have to hold that pain close and keep sensing and imagining. Because literature and art are doing that work at every moment, because they infect everyone who reads, hears and sees them with sensitivity, and make them take the side of life, they are neither useless nor supplementary, but necessary."

Han has talked about violence and human fragility in many of her works, winning many fans around the world. "The Vegetarian" (2027) talks about the brutality of patriarchy; while "We Do Not Part" (2021) and "Human Acts" (2014) examine state violence and trauma among people.