South Korean novelist Han Kang, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, said she will "celebrate quietly tonight" having tea with her son.

"I'm so surprised and I'm absolutely honored," Han said in a phone interview with the Swedish Academy in a video released shortly after the winning announcement.

Han said she had just finished dinner with her son at home in Seoul, and they were both very surprised by the news.

"I didn't work today. I just read a bit, rested and took a walk. It was a kind of easy day for me," she said.

The 53-year-old author said she "grew up with Korean literature" and added that all the writers have been a collective inspiration for her. She hoped that the news would be a nice surprise for Korean literature readers and fellow writers.

For someone just discovering her works, Han suggested starting with her latest book, "I Do Not Bid Farewell" (published in Korean in 2021). The novel marks Han's return to the literary scene five years after clinching the International Booker Prize in the UK in 2016.

Its French edition won the prestigious Prix Medicis for foreign literature in France last year, and the English edition is also underway.

"I think every writer likes his or her most recent books," she said.

"This book could be a starting point, and 'Human Acts' is directly connected (to this book)."

Han mentioned in an interview with The Korea Herald last year that “she sees the two books -- 'Human Acts' and 'I Do Not Bid Farewell' -- as a pair" : the former about the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising and the latter about the Jeju April 3 Incident.