Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 Speculation

[redhead]

Su Tong
A writer at the same level as Yu Hua, and also a good friend of Yu Hua.His most famous novel, Raise the Red Lantern, was adapted into a film by Zhang Yimou and nominated for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991.He is regarded as the best Chinese male writer who specializes in women's stories.He was also nominated for the Man Booker International Prize for The Boat to Redemption in 2011.

Since last year, Su Tong and Yu Hua have taken part in a TV show together.
View attachment 2211

Thanks for posting these! I've read a few Su Tong books in translation, and he comes across as pretty uneven. The novellas collected in Raise the Red Lantern, including Wives and Concubines, are incredible, but other books, like the novels The Boat to Redemption and Binu and the Great Wall, come off as mediocre at best. Is this just a translation issue, or is his writing uneven in the original too?

 

[nagisa]

Jia Pingwa
A master writer in China, you might call him "China's Ian McEwan" or "China's Philip Roth", he is far better known in China than Yan Lianke.His most famous novel, Ruined City, won Prix Femina étranger in France and was banned in China for 16 years because of its sexually explicit depiction,causing it to become one of the most pirated books in modern Chinese literature.

In 2015,a young admirer knelt before Jia Pingwa and called him the God of literature,this photo was widely shared on the Chinese Internet,of course, it makes a lot of controversy too.
View attachment 2210

Among the authors you've cited so far, I was not aware of this one. Interesting to note that the more sexually explicit scenes of Ruined City were futilely "pre-censored" by the author — about 7000 characters total out of 400.000 as a French scholarly article notes — and that the charges of its obscenity may hide its more subversive, critical content

I'm interested. But pre-emptively fatigued: another 700+-page doorstopper...

 

[Benny Profane]

Last week before the Nobel, guys!
How is the anxiety? Are you eager for the annoucement?

 

[nagisa]

@zhang wei Thank you very much for your posts on Chinese authors! Very informative, and good to know the opinion of someone on the ground. I notice that all of them seem to have won the Mao Dun Prize. I'd be interested in knowing more about Chinese literary prizes; this seems to be one of the most prestigious, but also disparaged in recent years, criticised for awarding high-ranking members of regional writers' associations for their positions, not their works. (An interesting parallel presents itself with the prestigious French literary prize the Goncourt, which has been accused to rewarding authors from the same 3 large publishing houses.) So I guess my question would be: how do people perceive literary prizes in China? Are there smaller/alternative prizes to the big ones?

 

[Bartleby]

Last week before the Nobel, guys!
How is the anxiety? Are you eager for the annoucement?

I don't know why, maybe it's the anxiety talking, but I'm feeling this year will be a choice not to my liking, but maybe to everyone else's... I hope to be wrong, tho...

 

[Leseratte]

Last week before the Nobel, guys!
How is the anxiety? Are you eager for the annoucement?

This is such a nice question, Benny!

 

[Morbid Swither]

I don't know why, maybe it's the anxiety talking, but I'm feeling this year will be a choice not to my liking, but maybe to everyone else's... I hope to be wrong, tho...

I always have that fear, but maybe just have faith it will all be glorious. Lol

 

[Leseratte]

I don't know why, maybe it's the anxiety talking, but I'm feeling this year will be a choice not to my liking, but maybe to everyone else's... I hope to be wrong, tho...

?

 

[namelesshere]

I don't know why, maybe it's the anxiety talking, but I'm feeling this year will be a choice not to my liking, but maybe to everyone else's... I hope to be wrong, tho...

I'm feeling this too. It's rare I'm really happy with the result two years in a row. But I price that in to my expectations!

The worst that can happen is that I am tempted to try an author again whose work I've previously not liked.

 

[Daniel del Real]

I never heard of him. Honestly, I would never have even considered such an author as a likely winner (I am not referring to his value, I haven't read him), but I've lost many of my certainties by now. I call it "Gurnah's effect".

I know what you mean. Now when I see Stephen King, J.K Rowling or Taylor Swift in the betting list it gives me te chills; I call it the "Dylan effect".

 

[Daniel del Real]

Let me introduce some of the most famous novelists in contemporary China. Since you all know Yu Hua, Yan Lianke and Can Xue, I will introduce some writers that you may not know.

Wang Anyi
In fact,she is currently the most famous female writer in the Chinese literary world,just like Margaret Atwood in the English literary world. Her most famous novel,The Song of Everlasting Sorrow,for which she was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize in 2011,is a classic of contemporary Chinese literature.It is a novel about Shanghai, a special city in the modern history of China.Shanghai is so special that there is a special kind of Chinese literature called “Shanghai literature”,and its most famous representative writer is Eileen chang,who had a huge influence on modern Chinese literature, just as Virginia Woolf had on English literature.Many Chinese critics have compared Wang Anyi to Eileen Chang,of course, it makes a lot of controversy.

Wang Anyi in her 20s
View attachment 2209

I've read a couple of slim novels by her in Spanish translation: Love in a Small Town & Baotown. I found her literature more in the vein of Yu Hua, giving light to the "small lives" survivors of the catastrophe.
The Song of Everlasting Sorrow was translated to Spanish from the English, this is the reason keeeping me away from reading it.

Jia Pingwa
A master writer in China, you might call him "China's Ian McEwan" or "China's Philip Roth", he is far better known in China than Yan Lianke.His most famous novel, Ruined City, won Prix Femina étranger in France and was banned in China for 16 years because of its sexually explicit depiction,causing it to become one of the most pirated books in modern Chinese literature.

In 2015,a young admirer knelt before Jia Pingwa and called him the God of literature,this photo was widely shared on the Chinese Internet,of course, it makes a lot of controversy too.
View attachment 2210

First time I've heard of this writer, but after a quick search I found two of his novels translated to Spanish: Dead City and The Supreme Flower. First one is a little more hard to find (and probably it's a retranslation too) but the second one is available and translated directed from the Chinese.
Have you read any of them?

 

[Daniel del Real]

I never heard of him, Daniel. I read some interviews by him for Portuguese media vehicles and I could notice that his works are based on social experiences and historical plots.
Am I right?

Honestly, no idea. He's quite old at 85, but he has emerged lately in the Spanish publication world.

 

[Daniel del Real]

Su Tong
A writer at the same level as Yu Hua, and also a good friend of Yu Hua.His most famous novel, Raise the Red Lantern, was adapted into a film by Zhang Yimou and nominated for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991.He is regarded as the best Chinese male writer who specializes in women's stories.He was also nominated for the Man Booker International Prize for The Boat to Redemption in 2011.

Since last year, Su Tong and Yu Hua have taken part in a TV show together.
View attachment 2211

A while ago I purchased a novel by him translated as The Emperor's life, but haven't gotten to read it.

Ge Fei
One of the most important writers in contemporary Chinese literature.His famous novel,Peach Blossom Paradise,was finalisted for the 2021 American National Book Awards for Translated Literature.He used to be an experimental writer,just like Can Xue.But he gave it up and turned to study classical Chinese literature and was particularly fond of The Plum in the Golden Vase.

He has a famous saying：Milan Kundera is an overrated writer，massively overrated！
View attachment 2213

I liked what I read in The Invisible, a more urban approach to China's contemporary life. Apparently there's another novel by him recently translated called Memory of the Paradise.

 

[Ludus]

"For her examinations of Jewish American experience in the aftermath of migration and trauma, and because we just realised she's still alive."

In all seriousness, she'd be a great and deserving surprise winner.

I found a few days ago a copy of The Puttermeister Papers 2nd hand and it was signed by her. So now she's my forerunner lol

 

[Septularisen]

Wikipedia has a page with the names of all (?) the candidates for the 2023 Nobel Prize.
To tell the truth, there are names I don't even know, and there are names I didn't even know were candidates...

2023 Nobel Prize in Literature - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[redhead]

Wikipedia has a page with the names of all (?) the candidates for the 2023 Nobel Prize.
To tell the truth, there are names I don't even know, and there are names I didn't even know were candidates...

2023 Nobel Prize in Literature - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That's quite a lot of names, many I've never heard of. Have others on here read them? I wonder how whoever made that page put that list together.

 

[Benny Profane]

Wikipedia has a page with the names of all (?) the candidates for the 2023 Nobel Prize.
To tell the truth, there are names I don't even know, and there are names I didn't even know were candidates...

2023 Nobel Prize in Literature - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I'm very surprised to read the name of João Silvério Trevisan on this list. Nobody in Brazil argues for him and very few people know him here.
I'm wondering if the editors of Wikipedia read our board because I claimed for him here and I don't know if this fact was a parameter for his name on this list.

 

[Septularisen]

I wonder how whoever made that page put that list together.

ChatGPT ? ???

 

[Septularisen]

That's quite a lot of names,

Two hundred if I counted right!

 

[Ludus]

But yeah it kinda looks like the winner is going to be in that list.