Speaking of perennials, it's quite fun to read old NYT articles and see how the perennial speculation would manifest into actual laureates. And by speculation, I mean clearly Academy members were leaking shortlists. It may be fruitful if someone wants to do a deeper trawl to ascertain names.
From 1994 when Oe was awarded:
Because the three previous winners -- Derek Walcott, Nadine Gordimer and Ms. Morrison -- write in English, speculation before today's announcement had centered on authors from Europe or Asia. Among those considered in the running were the Belgian poet, playwright and novelist Hugo Claus, who writes in Flemish; the German novelist and playwright Peter Handke; the Dutch novelist Cees Nooteboom; the Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer; the Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo, and the Irish poet Seamus Heaney.
Or when Fo got it in 1997:
Mr. Fo later told reporters over the telephone that he found out 15 days ago that he was a Nobel finalist along with the Portuguese writer Jose Saramago.
Morrison:
The announcement that Ms. Morrison had won the Nobel Prize came as something of a surprise. Speculation in the Swedish press had swirled around four possible candidates: Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet, who has been considered a front-runner for several years; Hugo Claus, a Belgian poet, playwright and film maker who writes in Flemish; Bei Dao, an exiled Chinese poet, and Ali Ahmed Saeed, a Syrian-born Lebanese poet who writes under the name Adonis.
American writers whose names have surfaced from time to time are Joyce Carol Oates and Thomas Pynchon.
Paz:
In keeping with the academy's tradition of secrecy, he declined to identify the others. But members of literary circles here said that perennial candidates included Carlos Fuentes, another Mexican writer; Nadine Gordimer, the South African writer; V. S. Naipaul, the novelist, who was born in Trinidad and lives in Britain; Milan Kundera, the Czechoslovak novelist; Max Frisch, the Swiss playwright, and Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian writer.
Brodsky:
Although the deliberations are secret, an academy member confirmed that Mr. Brodsky was a finalist last year when Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian poet, won. This year, according to some accounts, Mr. Brodsky won out over a list of finalists including Mr. Naipaul, Octavio Paz, a Mexican critic and poet, and the reputed runner-up, Camilo Jose Cela, a Spanish poet born in 1916.
TOKYO, Oct. 13
www.nytimes.com
Dario Fo, Italian playwright-performer known for mixing social farce with sharp political satire, is awarded Nobel Prize in Literature; Swedish Academy, in its announcement of $1 million prize, likens Fo to 'jesters of the Middle Ages' who relied on wit, irreverence and slapstick humor to poke...
www.nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com
STOCKHOLM, Oct. 11
www.nytimes.com
