Nobel Prize in Literature 1973

[Marba]

In 1973 Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature" and now when 50 years have passed the list of nominees for 1973 has been released.

101 writers were suggested. The same number as in 1972, but more compared with 91 writers in 1971 and 77 writers in 1970 and fewer than the 104 writers suggested in 1969.

Kaj Schueler from Svenska Dagbladet has visited the archives and written this article (see translation of it in my next post).

The shortlist for the 1973 prize turned out to be:

• Saul Bellow (awarded in 1976)
• Anthony Burgess
• William Golding (awarded in 1983)
• Eugenio Montale (awarded in 1975)
• Yiannis Ritsos
• Patrick White (awarded this year)

In his article Schueler quotes Nobel Committee chairman Karl-Ragnar Gierow as saying that for setting the shortlist: "The committee agreed on Patrick White, Saul Bellow also had five votes, Yiannis Ritsos got four, Anthony Burgess, William Golding and Eugenio Montale each got three."



From the list of suggestions we can also learn the the following:

Nominees who would be awarded in coming years:

• Patrick White (awarded in 1973)
• Eyvind Johnson (awarded in 1974)
• Harry Martinson (awarded in 1974)
• Eugenio Montale (awarded in 1975)
• Saul Bellow (awarded in 1976)
• Vicente Aleixandre (awarded in 1977)
• Isaac Bashevis Singer (awarded in 1978)
• Odysseas Elytis (awarded in 1979)
• Elias Canetti (awarded in 1981)
• William Golding (awarded in 1983)
• Claude Simon (awarded in 1985)
• Elie Wiesel (awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986)
• Camilo José Cela (awarded in 1989)
• Nadine Gordimer (awarded in 1991)
• Günter Grass (awarded in 1999)
• V. S. Naipaul (awarded in 2001)
• Doris Lessing (awarded in 2007)

Most nominations:

• Elie Wiesel, 32 nominations
• W.H. Auden, 12 nominations (passed away in September 1973)
• André Malraux, 8 nominations
• Patrick White, 6 nominations
• André Chamson, 5 nominations
• Julien Green, 5 nominations
• Gyula Illyés, 5 nominations
• Vladimir Nabokov, 5 nominations
  

Nominees who had been nominated for most years up to this point:

• André Malraux - 24th year
• Alberto Moravia - 19th year
• Graham Greene - 18th year
• Thornton Wilder - 16th year
• Taha Hussein - 15th year (passed away in October 1973)
• Miroslav Krleza - 15th year

First-time nominees (18 in total, 9 fewer than in 1972 and 2 more than in 1971 and 1970):

• Conrad Aiken (passed away in August 1973)
• Vicente Aleixandre (awarded in 1977)
• Antonio Aniante
• Miodrag Bulatovic
• Albert Cohen
• Adolfo Costa du Rels
• Indira Devi Dhanrajgir
• Eugen Jebeleanu
• Yasar Kemal
• Zenta Maurina
• Henry Miller
• John Crow Ransom
• Isaac Bashevis Singer (awarded in 1978)
• Pratapnarayan Tandon
• Paul Voivenel
• Martin Wickramasinghe
• Chiang Yee
• Xu You

N.B.: Hannu Salama is also set as first-time nominee in the published list of suggestions, but he actually already had a nomination in 1969.

Nominations from members of the Swedish Academy:

• Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay (by the Nobel Committee) (had passed away in 1971!)
• Louis Paul Boon (by Artur Lundkvist
• Anthony Burgess (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Suniti Kumar Chatterji (by the Nobel Committee)
• Odysseas Elytis (by the Nobel Committee)
• Nadine Gordimer (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Julien Green (by Johannes Edfelt)
• Vladimír Holan (by the Nobel Committee)
• Gyula Illyés (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Eyvind Johnson (by Johannes Edfelt and Pär Lagerkvist) - Johnson was at the time of nomination a member of the SA (just as Lagerkvist had been when he was awarded in 1951)
• Ferenc Juhász (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Miroslav Krleza (by the Nobel Committee)
• Manbohdan Lal (by the Nobel Committee)
• Doris Lessing (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Norman Mailer (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Bernard Malamud (by the Nobel Committee)
• Harry Martinson (by Johannes Edfelt and Pär Lagerkvist) - Martinson was at the time of nomination a member of the SA (just as Lagerkvist had been when he was awarded in 1951)
• Veijo Meri (by the Nobel Committee)
• Henri Michaux (by Lars Forssell)
• V. S. Naipaul (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Yiannis Ritsos (by the Nobel Committee)
• Claude Simon (by the Nobel Committee)
• Patrick White (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Yasar Kemal - by Per Wästberg, as chairman of Swedish PEN (Wästberg is a current member of the SA since 1997 and was chairman of the Nobel Committee 2004-2017)

Nominated women (6 in total, up from 5 in 1972 and 1 in 1971):

• Simone de Beauvoir
• Indira Devi Dhanrajgir
• Nadine Gordimer (awarded in 1991)
• Doris Lessing (awarded in 2007)
• Zenta Maurina
• Marie Under

Nominations from former laureates:

• Graham Greene (by 1972 laureate Heinrich Böll)
• Eyvind Johnson (by 1951 laureate Pär Lagerkvist) - Johnson was at the time of nomination a member of the SA (just as Lagerkvist had been when he was awarded)
• Harry Martinson (by 1951 laureate Pär Lagerkvist) - Martinson was at the time of nomination a member of the SA (just as Lagerkvist had been when he was awarded)
• Vladimir Nabokov (by 1970 laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
• Zaharia Stancu (by 1967 laureate Miguel Ángel Asturias)

Oldest and youngest nominees:

• Marie Under - 90 years old
• Hannu Salama - 37 years old (Salama is still alive and could hence be in the running for the 2024 Nobel Prize)

 

[Marba]

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.

White's Nobel Prize – the calm before the storm.

For the first time, the Nobel Prize in Literature went to an Australian, Patrick White. But behind the scenes of the Nobel Committee there was a bigger drama going on: Could two Swedish authors share the prize instead? Kaj Schueler has read the (until now) secret Nobel documents from 1973.

The desire to add a new continent – Australia – to the Nobel Prize in Literature was essential when Patrick White, among equally distinguished writers, was awarded the 1973 Nobel Prize. This ambition also becomes clear in the closing words of the justification, "introduced a new continent into literature". The Nobel committee's proposal with Patrick White as the first name, however, contained some question marks which were apparently straightened out during the discussions in the Academy. The chairman of the Nobel Committee, Karl Ragnar Gierow, initially had a slightly different opinion, where this year he preferred to reward names such as the American Saul Bellow (laureate in 1976) and the Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos.

Gierow writes in the statement: "The committee agreed on Patrick White, Saul Bellow also had five votes, Yiannis Ritsos got four, Anthony Burgess, William Golding and Eugenio Montale each three."

Although not apparent from this year's proceedings, the possibility of conquering a new continent was one of the reasons for the great interest in White's writing ever since he was first suggested in 1968. The Nobel Committee's chairman at the time, Anders Österling, had already for some time felt a strong need to expand the Academy's search for laureates in new parts of the world and new language areas. He then commented on White's candidacy:

"Above all, through his great novel 'The Tree of Man', at once a chronicle of the fate of a settler family and a nature epic about Australia as a living environment, White has conquered the place as the fifth continent's first full-fledged representative in literature. It is an effort of such importance that it undoubtedly deserves to be studied to a greater degree than has been the case so far/…/".

Unthinkable with today's strict conflict of interest rules

The argument was repeated in the years that followed as White was a leading candidate until he was selected in 1973
With the entry of Artur Lundkvist (1969) and Lars Gyllensten (1968) into the Nobel Committee, White's candidacy was further strengthened. Literarily, however, White was closer to the European and Russian tradition of epic storytelling with role models such as Joyce and D.H. Lawrence, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. His psychological (Jungian influences), existential and moral claims perhaps appealed more to a Western audience than to the Australian public where he was actually not very popular.

The rather neat selection was also visible in that two of the Nobel committee members wrote the major presentation articles in Svenska Dagbladet, Knut Ahnlund, and in Dagens Nyheter, Artur Lundkvist. Something that today, with the increasingly strict conflict of interest rules that the Academy applies, would be completely unthinkable.

In other words, it was not a particularly dramatic negotiation that took place in the Nobel Committee, the drama was on a completely different level, namely within the Academy. Since a couple of years ago, the possibility of awarding Swedish authors the Nobel Prize in Literature had become a burning topic for the group. The Nobel Committee had not really wanted to address the issue but instead referred it to the Academy, both in 1972 and now in 1973.

The authors in question were those often suggested: Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson and Vilhelm Moberg. This year, Johnson and Martinson had been proposed by members Edfelt and Lagerkvist and Moberg by Gunnar Tilander, Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities.

It was no longer possible to avoid the question of the Swedish Nobel Prize. Somewhat reluctantly, but with insight into the importance of the issue, the permanent secretary and chairman of the Nobel Committee, Karl Ragnar Gierow, decided to argue in a longer statement for the reasonableness of the Academy also being able to reward its own (which the year after and for several years to come became a major contentious issue).

With customary rhetorical elegance, Gierow tackles the question:

“It may seem most convenient for my peace of conscience to go along with the Nobel Committee and let the matter pass on without comment. The sad thing about peace of conscience, however, is that it is rarely very comfortable. And if I omitted to touch the matter, I could not free myself from the suspicion of wanting to evade the, in a way, most difficult part of my duty.”

Gierow does not see that right now, apart from the three authors, there is any Swedish Nobel laureate in sight. For the Academy not to have a serious discussion now, it would mean "that within the foreseeable future any thought of a Swedish Nobel laureate (is) excluded". It wouldn't be a problem if the aforementioned were undeserving of the prize, but this is not the case, according to Gierow, and he gives a small kick to the Academy's own history when he writes that "The Nobel Prize has several times gone to writers who do not reach their performance."

"Also on this year's list of proposals, they assert themselves well. Harry Martinson is not behind Ritsos in lyrical richness and is more original. Eyvind Johnson and Vilhelm Moberg measure themselves in epic power with the storytellers, who this year are in the foreground, this said in full awareness that no one is strictly measuring themselves against anyone else: there is no reliable and manageable measuring stick."

Gierow knows that he has many like-minded people within the Academy when he recommends the award to the Swedish authors. But at the same time he is fully aware that the discussion is not about literary quality but about suitability. Already in 1972, Artur Lundkvist had, in a statement in the Nobel Committee, opposed a prize to Johnson and Martinson on grounds of suitability. Now it was time to take the bull by the horns, but Gierow admits that there is a problem here as "it could damage the international reputation of the Nobel Prize and the prestige of the Academy. That the risk exists cannot be disputed; I am not happy about it at all.”

But, he continues: "The question is how far the Academy, with its self-respect preserved, can go out of the way of risks."

The basis for the 1974 decision

Gierow now argues forcefully – and in the spirit of the Nobel testament – that a candidate's nationality cannot be decisive for receiving the prize. This is partly contrary to how the Academy has previously made decisions and partly to how other awarding institutions have acted. Furthermore, such a stance can only be taken after a formal decision in principle, but would be contrary to both the will and the Nobel Foundation's statutes.

"The Academy has to choose between either, as it has been until now, without regard to the person's religion, political beliefs, race, nationality, etc. consider possible candidates, or else to request an amendment to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, according to which Swedes would be excluded from the literature prize. In order to enter into force, such a charter amendment must be approved by the other prize groups, the Nobel Council and the Nobel Board, as well as confirmed by the King. The prospects of that happening are likely to be small.”

Gierow also opposes that membership in a prize-giving assembly would disqualify an author from being considered for a prize. He refers to the fact that several of the natural science Swedish laureates have been members of the prize assembly. Each candidate, regardless of residence, must be assessed individually. An imaginary opponent also gets to take part in Gierow's ironically sarcastic tone:

"Furthermore: if membership in the Academy should constitute an obstacle to the Nobel Prize, the Academy should, in the name of justice and love of humanity, consider this in time, and select only those literary talents who can never enter the danger zone, and spare the better equipped from the fatal award, that an election would entail.”

Gierow does not take a stand for the individual candidates – although he points out that both Johnson and Martinson have new works coming and if these are well received, it could strengthen an award decision. However, it is fairly obvious that his submission already internally lays the decisive foundation for the 1974 decision. Although he sees the risks in his plea, neither he nor the academy in general had prepared for the storm that followed the decision to award Johnson and Martinson the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 

[Bartleby]

Thank you very much, Marba!!!

And, boy, next year's article is bound to present us with some high quality drama!

 

[Benny Profane]

Happy new year for you too, Marba! Thank you again for these reports!!!

 

[Benny Profane]

About these new names, I'm looking forward to read something by Adoldo Costa du Rels because he was Bolivian (a neighbour country to mine which I know nothing about its Literature) and was a former Diplomat.

I'm very curious about Chiang Yee and Zenta Maurina too.
Has someone read about their works?

 

[Ben Jackson]

In 1973 Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature" and now when 50 years have passed the list of nominees for 1973 has been released.

101 writers were suggested. The same number as in 1972, but more compared with 91 writers in 1971 and 77 writers in 1970 and fewer than the 104 writers suggested in 1969.

Kaj Schueler from Svenska Dagbladet has visited the archives and written this article (see translation of it in my next post).

The shortlist for the 1973 prize turned out to be:

• Saul Bellow (awarded in 1976)
• Anthony Burgess
• William Golding (awarded in 1983)
• Eugenio Montale (awarded in 1975)
• Yiannis Ritsos
• Patrick White (awarded this year)

In his article Schueler quotes Nobel Committee chairman Karl-Ragnar Gierow as saying that for setting the shortlist: "The committee agreed on Patrick White, Saul Bellow also had five votes, Yiannis Ritsos got four, Anthony Burgess, William Golding and Eugenio Montale each got three."



From the list of suggestions we can also learn the the following:

Nominees who would be awarded in coming years:

• Patrick White (awarded in 1973)
• Eyvind Johnson (awarded in 1974)
• Harry Martinson (awarded in 1974)
• Eugenio Montale (awarded in 1975)
• Saul Bellow (awarded in 1976)
• Vicente Aleixandre (awarded in 1977)
• Isaac Bashevis Singer (awarded in 1978)
• Odysseas Elytis (awarded in 1979)
• Elias Canetti (awarded in 1981)
• William Golding (awarded in 1983)
• Claude Simon (awarded in 1985)
• Elie Wiesel (awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986)
• Camilo José Cela (awarded in 1989)
• Nadine Gordimer (awarded in 1991)
• Günter Grass (awarded in 1999)
• V. S. Naipaul (awarded in 2001)
• Doris Lessing (awarded in 2007)

Most nominations:

• Elie Wiesel, 32 nominations
• W.H. Auden, 12 nominations (passed away in September 1973)
• André Malraux, 8 nominations
• Patrick White, 6 nominations
• André Chamson, 5 nominations
• Julien Green, 5 nominations
• Gyula Illyés, 5 nominations
• Vladimir Nabokov, 5 nominations

Nominees who had been nominated for most years up to this point:

• André Malraux - 24th year
• Alberto Moravia - 19th year
• Graham Greene - 18th year
• Thornton Wilder - 16th year
• Taha Hussein - 15th year (passed away in October 1973)
• Miroslav Krleza - 15th year

First-time nominees (18 in total, 9 fewer than in 1972 and 2 more than in 1971 and 1970):

• Conrad Aiken (passed away in August 1973)
• Vicente Aleixandre (awarded in 1977)
• Antonio Aniante
• Miodrag Bulatovic
• Albert Cohen
• Adolfo Costa du Rels
• Indira Devi Dhanrajgir
• Eugen Jebeleanu
• Yasar Kemal
• Zenta Maurina
• Henry Miller
• John Crow Ransom
• Isaac Bashevis Singer (awarded in 1978)
• Pratapnarayan Tandon
• Paul Voivenel
• Martin Wickramasinghe
• Chiang Yee
• Xu You

N.B.: Hannu Salama is also set as first-time nominee in the published list of suggestions, but he actually already had a nomination in 1969.

Nominations from members of the Swedish Academy:

• Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay (by the Nobel Committee) (had passed away in 1971!)
• Louis Paul Boon (by Artur Lundkvist
• Anthony Burgess (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Suniti Kumar Chatterji (by the Nobel Committee)
• Odysseas Elytis (by the Nobel Committee)
• Nadine Gordimer (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Julien Green (by Johannes Edfelt)
• Vladimír Holan (by the Nobel Committee)
• Gyula Illyés (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Eyvind Johnson (by Johannes Edfelt and Pär Lagerkvist) - Johnson was at the time of nomination a member of the SA (just as Lagerkvist had been when he was awarded in 1951)
• Ferenc Juhász (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Miroslav Krleza (by the Nobel Committee)
• Manbohdan Lal (by the Nobel Committee)
• Doris Lessing (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Norman Mailer (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Bernard Malamud (by the Nobel Committee)
• Harry Martinson (by Johannes Edfelt and Pär Lagerkvist) - Martinson was at the time of nomination a member of the SA (just as Lagerkvist had been when he was awarded in 1951)
• Veijo Meri (by the Nobel Committee)
• Henri Michaux (by Lars Forssell)
• V. S. Naipaul (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Yiannis Ritsos (by the Nobel Committee)
• Claude Simon (by the Nobel Committee)
• Patrick White (by Artur Lundkvist)
• Yasar Kemal - by Per Wästberg, as chairman of Swedish PEN (Wästberg is a current member of the SA since 1997 and was chairman of the Nobel Committee 2004-2017)

Nominated women (6 in total, up from 5 in 1972 and 1 in 1971):

• Simone de Beauvoir
• Indira Devi Dhanrajgir
• Nadine Gordimer (awarded in 1991)
• Doris Lessing (awarded in 2007)
• Zenta Maurina
• Marie Under

Nominations from former laureates:

• Graham Greene (by 1972 laureate Heinrich Böll)
• Eyvind Johnson (by 1951 laureate Pär Lagerkvist) - Johnson was at the time of nomination a member of the SA (just as Lagerkvist had been when he was awarded)
• Harry Martinson (by 1951 laureate Pär Lagerkvist) - Martinson was at the time of nomination a member of the SA (just as Lagerkvist had been when he was awarded)
• Vladimir Nabokov (by 1970 laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
• Zaharia Stancu (by 1967 laureate Miguel Ángel Asturias)

Oldest and youngest nominees:

• Marie Under - 90 years old
• Hannu Salama - 37 years old (Salama is still alive and could hence be in the running for the 2024 Nobel Prize)

Ever dependable Marba, thank you so much.

Hmmm... Where should I start from.

The shortlist this year seems interesting in that it's one of those years I have read every writer on it. Initially I had thought Greene and Nabokov was on the list, the only writers I got right was Bellow and Montale.

As of the year under review, the writers had published these major works (which apparently the committee might have based their decisions on):

Bellow: Herzog, Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Seize the Day
Burgess: A Clockwork Orange, Malayan Trilogy
Montale: Diary, Satura, Cuttlefish Bones, Storm and Other Things, Occasions
Ritsos: Moonlight Sonata, Romosini
Golding: Inheritors, Pincher Martin, Spire, Lord of the Flies
White: Eye of the Storm, Tree of Man, Voss, Vivisector, Solid Mandala

Apparently, you have followed the pattern since the beginning of the decade, you'll discover the committee's attention to poets more than the previous decades (at least two has been appearing on the shortlist), which shows the comittee's pragmatic approach to identifying lessr known/appreciated genres.

I think the candidates this year have very impressive oeuvre going for them: Bellow with his exuberant, although entertaining writing with insightful eye into modern's man predicament and America in the extremely prosperous era and how the individual is affected by it, Burgess with his ever expansive ideas on fictional techniques: A Clockwork Orange, with its terrifying vision of violence and mayhem, Enderby Quartet, Nothing Like the Sun and Deptford about writers, the other two been biographical works on Shakespeare and Marlow, colonialism with Malayan Trilogy, Earthly Powers still involved Power trial about plagiarism, dystopia with 1984 (Burgess wrote his own after been influenced by Orwell), Napoleon Symphony (using the structure of Beethoven's Eroica) and his wonderful essays on music (I highly recommend him to you guys, he's that good, extremely Joycean), Montale with pessimisticccccc, though visual, output in the very stage of his poems (Cuttlefish, Occasions, Storm and Other Things, might be the reason he didn't win the Prize for long, his pessimistic vision not favoured by Osterling, Italian lliterale expert at the Nobel Committee), and then his more accessible later where he ditched the highly allusive earlier works for a more hybrid style (Satura), and Golding with his also pessimistic vision, and of course White (already Gierow has talked about him, so need for repetition). Ritsos too's a very good poet, the only issue I have with him's that his massive output at times showed inconsistencies but in the very best of poems (Immobility of Voyages, Erotica, Moonlight Sonata, Sonata, the Stars), he's a force. I loved how he creates this intense surreal atmosphere (though I still prefer his compatroit Elyits, who's more consistent). In essence, the Committee made a right choice with White (please I encourage you guys to read him, he's one of the very best Nobel Laureates).

I would love to hear your opinions, guys, if you have read the shortlisted names (and your preferred candidate if you were in the Nobel Committee).

 

[Ben Jackson]

In conjunction with Marba's remark about Knut Anhnlund and Lundkvist writing articles on Svenska Dagbladet and Daghens Nyhether, here are some excerpts of articles the two critics wrote concerning some candidates in the 70s.

Arthur Lundkvist on Yiannis Ritsos article came about few weeks after the Nobel decision in 1979:

I have Ritsos extensively in self-composed French translation. I maintain that he's a superb poet, but in his weakest can lapse into Stalinist cliche or ignorant talkativeness. However, it's not wise to dismiss or rank him lower than Elytis, which I, no doubt, hold highly. I myself maintained that the prize be shared.

In Espmark's book on the Nobel Prize, Espmark talked about Ritsos been rejected for his political aspect in favour of his peer overlook, yet powerful but difficult Elytis whose production was a contribution to Greek revival.

Arthur Lundkvist on Jorge Luis Borges (Svenska Dagbladet 20th February 1979):

The ethical and human politics has descended to fascist direction, which I found unsituable to render him the Nobel Prize.

The remark of Knut Ahnlund in article in Svenska Dagbladet on 8th October 1977, Ben Jackson perceives, might have been the similar argument the critic presented to the Nobel Committee concerning Rafael Alberti and Vicente Aleixandre. Knit Ahnlund, been the Academy's expert on Spanish Literature, American Literature (with focus on Jewish writers) and Polish (he introduced Singer to Swedish Academy long before critics in Sweden ever knew Singer) and Czech Literature, might have been the decisive factor. But the world'll wait and see for the report in few years time.

Ahnulund writes:

Perhaps, it's surprising for many that Aleixandre won the Prize instead of Rafael Alberti, the Spanish poet which many would prefer. However, it lead to series of argument for Aleixandre. He wasn't so dazzling and precocious like the younger poet, but however the main focus was his life work. Does his work suitable, and to a great deal, closer than Alberti, who attained a high point long time with the volume Sobre Los Angeles? Alberti's popular, but when people come together however, it's Aleixandre who has, truthfully, reached deeper onto the development of the minds. Still, only few living poets belong in such level with such justifiable role and presence in literary history. Only few have such importance for the regeneration and continuation of a country's vital literature, a golden age which experience of gore has presented him content for his poetry after forth years in isolation.

These articles are actually longer than this, hence the presentation of a sort of translated (Ben read the articles in German few years ago, and then proceeded with a concised translation) excerpts.

Sources of the articles: Kjell Espmark's 1991 book on the Nobel Prize for Literature.

 

[redhead]

From David Marr's biography of White:

"Again the academy was divided. Gierow fought for Saul Bellow, but Lundkvist was able to win over a few more colleagues by arguing that The Eye of the Storm presented a more moral view of the artist than White had shown in The Vivesector. This brought the academy to a deadlock. One member, Harry Martinson, was ill and unable to be at the final meeting. Martinson was a lyric poet, a writer of memoirs and fables. In his life was an odd echo of Hurtle Duffield's career, for Martinson was sold for adoption when he was a child. He worked in the merchant navy before breaking free to write. The academics decided to let Martinson make the final choice. He was telephoned. Martinson said he did not wish to choose between White and Bellow, but why not award the prize to the new land of Australia? So it was settled and the academics drafted a citation along the lines suggested by Martison: 'To Patrick White for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature.'"

 

[hayden]

Thank you Marba. (This is genuinely all very much appreciated).

Hopefully I'll have time to post some comments about the nominees soon, but first I have to figure out who a lot of the new ones are — shocked at how few of the first-time names I recognize, even despite being sandwiched in-between some heavyweights. One of whom, Indira Devi Dhanrajgir, is still alive!

Was wondering when Yaşar Kemal's first nomination was, but figured it would be in the mid-80s. He really should have been awarded...

 

[Verkhovensky]

Out of first-timers, I read about Miodrag Bulatović.
It seems that he was very internationally renowned emigrant/dissident writer from Yugoslavia (Serbian/Montenegrin) in the 1950s and 1960s with his books that were studies of evil with mix of grotesque, black humor and critique of Yugoslav socialism, in some way akin to later cinematic movement of Black Wave.

However, it seems that in later decades, after his return from emigration he started writing more popular/bestseller works and lost critical renown, became staunch nationalist and finally died suddenly at the age of 61, towards the beginning of shit hitting the fan.
In 1973 he was still young (43 years) and writing critically renowned books.

 

[Ben Jackson]

Out of the first time nominees, I'm very sure some of us has read Henry Miller. Miller wrote autobiographical, modernist novels Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring and Tropic of Capricorn. The first two were subject of a high profile case in the 1950s and 60s. His major works, apart from the works aforementioned, are the travelogue Colossus of Maroussi and Rosy Crucifixion, both books I haven't read. The three novels which I mentioned earlier, are known for their vulgar language and stream of consciousness technique, and are based on the writer's experience in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Miller, I would say nowadays, has fallen into the under-rated category (I don't how many American writers that has fallen into this category).

Conrad Aiken, a poet from the generation of Eliot and Wallace Stevens, is another outstanding poet and follower of modernism. I recommend these brilliant writers.

 

[Ben Jackson]

Thank you Marba. (This is genuinely all very much appreciated).

Hopefully I'll have time to post some comments about the nominees soon, but first I have to figure out who a lot of the new ones are — shocked at how few of the first-time names I recognize, even despite being sandwiched in-between some heavyweights. One of whom, Indira Devi Dhanrajgir, is still alive!

Was wondering when Yaşar Kemal's first nomination was, but figured it would be in the mid-80s. He really should have been awarded...

Have you read the shortlisted writers, Hayden? I would love to hear your thoughts if you had.

 

[The Common Reader]

Out of the first time nominees, I'm very sure some of us has read Henry Miller. Miller wrote autobiographical, modernist novels Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring and Tropic of Capricorn. The first two were subject of a high profile case in the 1950s and 60s. His major works, apart from the works aforementioned, are the travelogue Colossus of Maroussi and Rosy Crucifixion, both books I haven't read. The three novels which I mentioned earlier, are known for their vulgar language and stream of consciousness technique, and are based on the writer's experience in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Miller, I would say nowadays, has fallen into the under-rated category (I don't how many American writers that has fallen into this category).

Conrad Aiken, a poet from the generation of Eliot and Wallace Stevens, is another outstanding poet and follower of modernism. I recommend these brilliant writers.

Thank you for the mention of Conrad Aiken, he was a brilliant poet and now, I would say, an under-rated one as well. Some of the works on the Poetry Foundation web site give an idea of his range: "Goya" and "Spanish Easter: 1926."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43213/goya-56d221eb139d0
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=55&issue=6&page=1

 

[Ben Jackson]

Ladies and gentlemen, in response to Bartleby's post #3, an information (not as in-depth as Marba's yearly report) concerning the 1974 Nobel literature prize has just surfaced. Now, in my next post, I tell you the reason why this information's authentic. However, before I let you know, let me present the profile of the two prominent committee members.

Karl Ragner Gierow (1904--1982) was a director of Royal Dramatic theater, directing the plays of Brecht, Sartre, and O'Neill, writers which influenced his literary philosophy. He became a member of the Academy in 1961 and member of the committee between 1963--1982, in the process becoming the permanent secretary of the Academy between 1964--1977, replaced by Lars Gyllensten. Gierow's literary philosophy, which served as criteria for the Nobel Committee (era of Pragmatism 1972--1977), was that art was renewal not of structure but from the ruins and dead culture, a resurrection from annihilated society. He favoured epics and entertaining narratives, a counterpoint to Lundkvist's taste for bold, radical and revolutionary writers.

Lars Gyllensten, on the other hand, was doctor of medicine whose first work, Camera Obscura, was modernist poetry collection. Hailed as Swedish answer to Camus and Mann, who are his influences, he became famous for his prose trilogy (Modern Myths 1949), Blue Ship (1950) Child Book (1952). He became a member of the committee in 1968 and was member of the committee between 1969--1986. He stepped down from his role as member of Swedish Academy as result of the failure of the Academy to support Rushdie following the declaration of fatwa. Lars Gyllensten's literary philosophy, which served as the criteria for Attention to Unknown Masters (1978--1984), was, apart from recognizing attention to writers from other regions of the world (neglected linguistic and geographic areas), was rationalism and intrepetration of classical mythology, subjective and relative nature of man's perception of truth, reaching conclusion that absolute skepticism's necessary basis for experience and knowledge, and reconciliation of spiritual and material world especially after society in ruins and in need of resurrection, which displayed influences of not just Camus and Thomas Mann, but also skeptical mysticism of Swedenborg, Kierkegaard, Strindberg and Carl Linnaeus.

 

[Benny Profane]

Let's go, @Ben Jackson !!!

 

[Ben Jackson]

Since 1944, when Anders Osterling introduced the criteria of Pioneers (1944--1971) the literature prize shortlist has been determined by Criteria of the Nobel Committee. Unlike the previous decades: Wirsen's Lofty and Sound Idealism (1900-1912), Hjarne's Policy of Neutrality (1913--1919), Per Hallstrom's Great Style (1920--1929) and Popular Interest (1930--1939), epochs where the shortlist was determined by popularity of the candidates, the shortlist from 1944 was determined by the artistic philosophy of the candidates, which includes thematic similarities, or regenerators/ pioneers through linguistic or geographical reasons. An illustration is 1959: Blixen and Graham Greene, both regenerators in short story and works set in farseeing areas (Out of Africa in Kenya, Power and the Glory, Quiet American and Heart of the Matter, set in Mexico, Vietnam and Sierra Leone respectively) Silone and Steinbeck, both social-perceptive writers, Quasimodo and Pound who are both pioneers in Italian and English poetry. In the 1960s, 40 candidates was shortlisted for the Prize, with 10 becoming Laureates, with finalists including Karl Jaspers, Ungaretti, Claude Simon, Eugene Ionesco, Paul Clean and others.

If you look closely at the Laureates awarded during the era of pragmatism (1972--1984), here are the characteristics of the Committee's criteria (I will list examples):

Epic narratives (Johnson's Return to Ithaca, Novels of Olof, Days of his Grace, Singer's Family Chronicles, Patrick White's Tree of Man, Golding's Inheritors)

Chroniclers: observers of humanity, providing insight into faraway lands and ages, sometimes with detailed historical research(Johnson's historical epics, Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King, Singer's The Slave, Satan in Goray, Canetti's Crowds and Power, Martinson's travelogues and Aniara)

Mingling of myths, fables, legends and elemental realism which reveal mystical and symbolic experience (Johnson's Novel of Olof, Return to Ithaca, Martinson's insight into water (stoker at sea) earth and air (tramps on the roads), Patrick White's portrayer of natural elements in Tree of Man, Elytis's depiction of water with feminine sensibilities is similar to Aleixandre, with the sun as element of oppression, Marquez's empirical reality in Autumn of a Patriach and combination of fantastic and realistic)

Depiction and drawing strength from folk tradition and environment (Montale's Linguria, Johnson, Singer, Elytis's Greece, Martinson, Jaroslav Seifert's Prague)

Exuberant style and broad outlook and calls for art of freedom and resistance from tyranny with clear-sightedness (Milosz, Johnson, Elytis, Seifert, Boll, Canetti)

Renewal, not of narrative structure or form but resurrecting art from ruins and dead culture (Milosz, Boll, Bellow, Aleixandre)

Reconciliation of spiritual and material world and rationalism and interpretation of myth (Milosz, Elytis, Golding, Montale)

Subjective and relative nature of man's perception of truth, reaching conclusion that absolute skepticism's necessary basis for experience and knowledge (Canetti's aphorisms, Golding's Pincher Martin, Singer, Seifert)

If you, attentively, read the Nobel press releases for these years and the award ceremony speeches for the Laureates, the Committe made implict references to other shortlisted writers. For example, when Gierow mentioned Boll as renewal not in the form but from ruins of an annihilated culture, he made mention of another German writers whose work has gained influence in Germany and elsewhere. Now, with the archives released two years ago, he discovered that Gierow was talking about Gunter Grass, who finished second in the voting behind Boll. When Lundkvist mentioned the epic and psychological art of White and his verbal and pictorial art, he was indirectly referring to not just Johnson and Anthony Burgess, but also Montale. Now if Greene, Kemal and Naipaul are shortlisted with Montale, Nabokov, Johnson and Martinson, then we should detect the following:

Kemal and Johnson weave fables, legends and myth into their writings: Robin-Hood inspired Memed, My Hawk and Johnson's Return to Ithaca inspired by Odysseus' tale.

Kemal, Greene, Naipaul and Johnson all set their works in faraway lands and ages: the travel reportages of Kemal and Naipaul, the collected reportages of Kemal and Loss of El Dorado and An Area of Darkness of Naipaul and Greene's novels set in different parts of the world along with travel writings of Liberia. Even Martinson's travel writings reflect the cosmos: his interest in ecology and his experience journeying on foot to Uruguay.

Martinson and Montale both share elemental realism, and Montale share the verbal and pictorial art with Johnson and Nabokov.

Johnson and Kemal both wrotes epics: Johnson's historical epics and Novel of Olof and Kemal's epic trilogy inspired by legend and folk stories.

With these characteristics highlighted, in the coming years we'll have, apart from the names already mentioned, on the shortlist: Leopold Senghor, Max Frisch, Bernard Malamud, Norman Mailer, Gyula Illyés, Sandor Weores, Elie Wiesel, Italo Calvino, Marguerite Yourcenar, Joyce Carol Oates (yes the Academy member that said Oates was finalist in 1981 was spot-on), Borges, Heinesen, Alberti, Gordimer, Andre Brink, Simon, Brodsky, Rene Char, Louis Paul Boon, Ba Jin, Doris Lessing, Koestler, Mahfouz, Cela, R K Narayan, Mario Luzi, Jorge Amado (not Lispector), Paz, and Aime Cesaire, with probabilities like Krelza, Vladimir Holan, Henry Miller, Primo Levi, Elsa Morante, Nichita Stanescu, Mircea Eliade, De Beauvoir and Abe Kobo. The probabilities are those I'm not too sure they'll make it though wouldn't be surprised if they do.