For those of you who are interested in reading more about the decision, but are not able to beacuse of the pay-wall here is a translation of Kaj Schueler's article from Svenska Dagbladet.
He received the Nobel Prize despite “communist propaganda”
Despite warnings about Pablo Neruda’s “communist tendency”, he received the Nobel Prize in 1971. Kaj Schueler reads documents that have been secret for 50 years, but which now provide insight into how the Academy’s choice of the Chilean poet went.
It was with some ambivalence that a majority of the members of the Nobel Committee supported the election of Pablo Neruda as the 1971 Nobel Laureate in Literature. The competition was tough with names like Patrick White, W.H. Auden, André Malraux and Eugenio Montale, all placed on the short list. White (1973) and Montale (1975) would later be awarded.
Due to the reorganisation that Karl Ragnar Gierow introduced since he became chairman of the committee, each of the five members gave a statement with priorities which the Academy then had to decide on. In practice, this meant that the Nobel Committee had transferred greater influence over the election to the Swedish Academy in plenary.
Pablo Neruda was most lively advocated by members Lars Gyllensten and Artur Lundkvist, who since he joined the Nobel Committee in 1969 had advocated Neruda. Henry Olsson and the chairman of the committee, Karl Ragnar Gierow, on the other hand, were somewhat lukewarm in their encouragement. Gierow considered that W.H. Auden (the last-minute reject throughout the 1960s) was equally worthy of being awarded on this occasion. Directly negative were both Anders Österling, who had objections to Neruda several times before, and Eyvind Johnson, who did not even have him on his short list.
Knut Ahnlund, who was not a member of the Swedish Academy at the time, was, however, co-opted to the Nobel Committee as an expert with, among other things, Spanish literature as his specialty. His extensive statement and description of this sprawling authorship weighed heavily in the decision. If one is to point out individual names behind a Nobel Prize, in this context there are two names that stand out: Lundkvist and Ahnlund. Karl Ragnar Gierow expressed it with a captivating image:
“Coming to a summary assessment of his work is as impossible for me as swimming across the Amazon River. Thanks to the extraordinary cork cushions with which Mr. Lundkvist and Professor Ahnlund assisted the needy, I stay afloat. However, I will not support Neruda’s candidacy without some reservation.”
Gierow pointed out what several members had turned themselves against: the productivity and the consequent inequality of the authorship. The never-ending eruption of poetry was, after all, Neruda’s hallmark, but not always a plus in the eyes of the Academy (Montale, who was also discussed, was Neruda’s opposite with his limited and selective publishing).
Pablo Neruda was first proposed in 1956, which was only noted, and the proposal did not return until 1961, when the Nobel Committee put it, as it is called in these contexts, on expectancy, and an inquiry into the authorship was to be carried out. The assignment went to the author Artur Lundkvist (then not a member of the Academy) and the following year the Academy was able to read an enthusiastic and inspiring text about the authorship. “… it is from the beginning to the end an impressive writing”, was Lundkvist’s conclusion. In 1963, Neruda was placed as the third option on the short list. However, with some important objections from the Nobel Committee chairman Anders Österling:
“For Neruda, I have the impression that in terms of poetic natural power and dynamic vitality, he has a lead over other possible competitors. The question here is only whether the increasingly dominant communist tendency in his poetry is compatible with the purpose of the Nobel Prize. Of course, the colour of the party card in itself cannot be an obstacle. A writer’s way of thinking – whether Marxist, syndicalist, anarchist or something else – belongs to his free right. However, Neruda is fully politically committed, including through his hymns to Stalin and other purely propagandistic performances. On that basis, I have reservations about his candidacy, without, however, wanting to firmly reject it in advance.”
An assessment he upheld in 1971. Österling’s reservation was based on his interpretation of the writing “ideal direction” in Nobel’s will. On two other occasions, Österling had invoked Nobel’s will to reject authorships. It was about Ezra Pound and Samuel Beckett. Pound (1959) because he not only writes captivating poetry but “still propagates ideas of a nature that is definitely contrary to the spirit of the Nobel Prize”. Beckett (1963) because his “demonstrative negative or nihilistic character” does not coincide with the “ideal intentions” of the prize. As for Neruda, Österling was probably not alone in his concerns as the authorship was rejected every time it was proposed in the coming years.
However, by the end of the 1960s, several changes had taken place in the Swedish Academy which would affect the prize decisions. Anders Österling resigned as chairman of the Nobel Committee and Karl Ragnar Gierow took over the gavel. Lars Gyllensten (elected in 1966) and Artur Lundkvist (elected in 1968) quickly became weighty members of the Nobel Committee, eager to participate in the prize decisions as well as in the initial discussions. It becomes clear in the discussions about the awards to Beckett and Solzhenitsyn, but also regarding Neruda.
The decision was received in the media without any major surprise. Rumours had pointed to Neruda and in Svenska Dagbladet Knut Ahnlund wrote a detailed presentation of the Nobel laureate. The article exudes appreciation. In Dagens Nyheter, on the other hand, the tone was different. The head of the culture section, Olof Lagercrantz, writes in a sour comment that the most important criterion “for a lyrical Nobel laureate, is to be translated into Swedish by a member of the Swedish Academy – Artur Lundkvist. Without such advocates, the lyricists of the world should not bother”. In a certainly conspicuous enumeration of those who did not receive the prize and those who did, he consolidates his indictment. However, Lagercrantz finds that Neruda is a well-deserved laureate in the “sham event” that the Nobel Prize constitutes.
As all members of the Nobel Committee now make their voices heard, this leaves room for considerations of principle, which have not previously been as visible. Lars Gyllensten writes after a lengthy explanation of the interpretation of Nobel’s will that he has arrived at certain pragmatic rules of thumb for the awarding institution: the quality requirement, the usefulness requirement and the timeliness aspect. He writes:
“Which of the proposed Nobel Prize candidates has done very good works of such a kind that the reading and writing “humanity” would benefit from the fact that these works were promoted, by giving money and prestige to them and paying attention to them? Not the best – because no one is the best, when there is no common yardstick – but a very good one. Not something passed – but something that is still alive and promising and could benefit from the prize. And the benefit of a prize for a literary work can lie on many levels – e.g., an original and innovative author is helped to continue; a neglected but fruitful literary genre is highlighted and supported; a language or culture area which has received insufficient attention, or other human aspirations and affairs are promoted by the support of their fictional manifestations by the prize.”
This summary (though without mentioning the lack of women laureates) and starting point for the work on the prize seem, when one thinks of many of the prizes in the 21st century, to still have bearing.
Karl Ragnar Gierow, on the other hand, gives an insight into what is to come in a reasoning about the prize’s spread in the world. This year’s nominees for the award included both Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson. Gierow states that no Nordic author has received the award since 1955. He argues against the notion that Nordic authors have been given priority over other nationalities. “No other worthy candidate can get a greater burden. It is worst for the Swedes, because the Academy unfortunately usually notices the person’s aptitude in belles-lettres even before a Nobel Prize is on the agenda – there is an exception, as is well known – and it can consequently be a matter of a choice within its own ranks. The situation is beginning to be that the Academy, out of concern for its reputation as impartial, is biased against writers of its language family. The Nobel Committee has also decided to bring up this issue for special consideration within the Academy after this year’s election.”
Throughout the 1960s, Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson had been nominated for the Nobel Prize on various occasions. There are therefore many indicators that serious discussions about this had already begun. This year, possibly for preventive purposes, Eyvind Johnson ended his long-standing involvement in the Nobel Committee. Gierow may have had some idea that the prize was problematic, but he could hardly have predicted the 1974 storm.
