She debuted in 2003 when her short story “To the Moon,” which is the title story in her first collection, won Literature and Society’s New Writers Award. In 2009 she also won the prestigious Hankook Ilbo Literary Award, which could be likened to the National Book Award, and whose past recipients include the Man Asian Prize-winner Kyung-sook Shin. Her books include the short story collections To the Moon (2006), Book of Ice (2009), and My Left Hand the King and My Right Hand the King’s Scribe (2011), as well as the novel The Impossible Fairytale (2013).

Han is also a notable translator and has translated Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table, Geoff Dyer’s But Beautiful and The Ongoing Moment, among others, into Korean. She currently teaches at the Seoul Institute of the Arts and Korea University’s Department of Creative Writing. She is an active member of an experimental group called Rue and also runs Oulipopress, an independent press.