South Korean author Han Kang has won the Man Booker International Prize, sharing the £50,000 ($72,000) award with her translator – who had only taught herself Korean three years before. Han Kang, 45, an author and creative writing teacher who is already successful in South Korea, is likely to enjoy a spike in international sales following the win for her book, The Vegetarian.

She is the first South Korean to win the prize. It was picked unanimously by the panel of five judges, beating six other novels including The Story of the Lost Child, by Italian sensation Elena Ferrante, and A Strangeness in My Mind, by Turkey’s Orhan Pamuk.

For the first time this year, the award went jointly to the translator, Deborah Smith, 28, who only started learning Korean three years before she embarked on the translation.

Did You Know?

• The international edition of Britain’s Man Booker Prize was introduced in 2005 and up to now has been awarded in recognition of a body of work by a living author whose work was written or available in English.
• But from this year, it will be presented annually for a single work of fiction that has been translated into English and published in Britain.