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Originally Posted by Clarissa
That being said, I know he is European and very much so, but that other brilliant Italian, Umberto Eco, is as worthy as many other living writers who have received it.
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Definitely agree, as if my avatar didn't already give it away.
Though as much as I think Eco is deserving - partly because it's been ages since it went to an author who's just as accomplished in non-fiction as in fiction - it would be nice if it didn't go to yet another European post-modernist. Just like some people think Soyinka walked away with Achebe's prize, I'm pretty sure Pamuk snatched Eco's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarissa
That list has quite a few bestselling authors in their time... Hemingway, Pearl S. Buck, Thomas Mann, Wlliam Golding etc. They were hardly 'obscure' writers when they were awarded the Nobel Prize for Lit.
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Absolutely. Like I said, they do occasionally come up with very well-known winners where the Academy's taste matches the public's. I just don't think they give much of a damn whether a writer is well-known or not. (When Pinter got it, his two former Swedish publishers complained that they'd given it to an author who wasn't even in print in Sweden; the Academy secretary responded "Oh, really? And whose fault is that, eh?")