Nobel Prize in Literature 2009 Speculation

[Scott89119]

Here's just hoping they have selected someone with a distinguished enough ouevre, and not go obscure for obscurity's sake. Then again, for every Szymborska, Kertesz and Xinjian there's a Naipaul, Coetzee and Lessing, so who the hell knows.

 

[Mirabell]

If Stewart is right in # 423, then Tomas Venclova is our next winner. Is that obscure enough for you? I mean, Tomas WHO?



Cheers,
~ L.

I ordered a selected poems of his in German a few minutes ago. in German translation, that man is astonishing, from what I saw.

 

[adaorardor]

List of writers I'd be happy for if they won it:

Peter Nadas
Javier Marias
Laszlo Krasznahorkai
John Banville
Fernando del Paso
David Grossman
Carlos Fuentes
Thomas Pynchon
Paul Muldoon
John Ashbery
Peter Handke
Thomas Transtromer

Selfishly, I hope it's someone like de Palol or Laiseca or Jirgl whom I'm currently waiting for a translation of, just so that process gets set in motion or expedited.

 

[adaorardor]

Oh, and my prediction for who it WILL be: either Nadas or Fuentes.

 

[Sisyphus]

I hope that Ismail Kadare will win the Nobel cause he had been a candidate for the last years

 

[Stewart]

I hope that Ismail Kadare will win the Nobel cause he had been a candidate for the last years

With all respect, he most likely has been a candidate, but the facts are, if he hasn't yet been recognised then we won't know for 50 years how close, if at all, he was.

 

[miercuri]

I really want Philip Roth to win, because people have been rooting for him for ages but with the passing of yeach year it seems that he has less and less chances. If they didn't give it to Updike at least give it to Roth before it is too late, preferably before the 20 year anniversary of Toni Morrison's win.

 

[Scott89119]

I really want Philip Roth to win, because people have been rooting for him for ages but with the passing of yeach year it seems that he has less and less chances. If they didn't give it to Updike at least give it to Roth before it is too late, preferably before the 20 year anniversary of Toni Morrison's win.

From your lips to God's (or Peter Englund's) ears. In a perfect world Roth would've won it ages ago. However, if he got it in the past maybe we wouldn't have had some of his later masterpieces. It's a paradox.

 

[Damian Kelleher]

I don't think Updike was ever much of a possibility. Once you get past the sex, what do you have, really? Some nice sentences? Sure, but an awful lot of terrible ones as well. And, as he became older, his work became the discomforting fantasies of a dirty old man. Of course, in the hands of a genius, that could work, but alas.

Roth on the other hand did sex a lot better (and masturbation, let's be honest), and he has proved again and again that he can do more, too. But Nobel worthy? I used to think so, but the more widely I read the less sure I am. Still, I wouldn't be unhappy, and would probably actually be a little chuffed, all told.

Though I do want Kundera or Antunes to win it most of all...

 

[Sisyphus]

when is the winner going to be announced

 

[Bjorn]

when is the winner going to be announced

13.00 CET (that's 11.00 GMT).

 

[Eric]

At 13:00 today we will know all. Just to see whether Swedish literary people have got it right, here are what people interviewed by the Uppsala daily Upsala Nya Tidning had to say:

Ola Larsmo (Head of Swedish PEN): He thinks it'll be Assia Djebar; he'd like it to be Don De Lillo.

Ulrika Knutson (author): She hopes it'll be the Belarusian author Svietlana Alexievych.

Ingmar Lemhagen (critic): Tomas Transtr?mer.

Birgit ?stlund (publisher): Adonis.

Ulrika Larsson (publisher): Suniti Namjoshi.

So that's what they say in university city Uppsala. Maybe they'll all be wrong.

 

[alik-vit]

Ulrika Knutson (author): She hopes it'll be the Belarusian author Svietlana Alexievych.

It will be great choice. Really. It's a kind of literature of witnesses. Her books on Afganistan and Tchernobyl' are masterpieces. In russian Internet I see information on her nomination by Sweden Pen-club.

 

[Stewart]

Just want to say that once the announcement is made I'll be closing this speculation thread. Discussion of the laureate can continue on a new thread in the News Discussion forum, under the title of Nobel Prize in Literature 2009.

 

[Sisyphus]

Ismail kadare

 

[saliotthomas]

If Tomas Transtr?mer,or the muller woman get it,i will understand pecfetly the feeling some had last years with Le Clezio ,complete out of the blue.

Is this guy a plastic truck becoming a spaceship?




Anyway i'll miss the new,i'll be at a mini-day-out
Cheers.

 

[Eric]

I'd never heard of Svetlana Alexievich before, but I'll check her out on the net, whether or not she happens to win. The problem with Googling for her name is the usual one: the transliteration of the Cyrillic. So for each language, you have to change the transliteration. But I have found:

Svetlana Aleksievich: "War's Unwomanly Face"

ABM -- Writer Svetlana Aleksiyevich (Śviatłana Aleksiejevič) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Books by author Svetlana*Aleksievich

So by looking at various websites, you can piece together an idea of what she has written, and what is available in more accessible languages, such as English, French and German.

*

As for "the muller woman" (Saliotthomas), I borrowed Herta M?ller's novel "Heute w?r ich mir lieber nicht begegnet" (Rowohlt, 1997), plus the Dutch translation, so I am equipped, should she win. I've only read a few pages, but it deals with a woman summoned for interrogation in Ceausescu's Romania.

 

[alik-vit]

Svetlana Alexievich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia her wiki page

 

[Stewart]

Looks like it won't be for another hour yet. The Nobel home page, for some reason, shows the current time (in GMT) as being 10:08 and not 11:08, which it actually is.

EDIT: Ah, we're on British Summer Time at the moment, which is an hour ahead of GMT. Sheesh!

 

[Damian Kelleher]

Just remember to breathe, Mr Stewart