Nobel Prize in Literature 2010 Speculation

[Liam]

The United States of America, that's where literature's at.

Well, what did you expect him to say, he's a bitter old bastard, ain't he? But he has a point and is merely repaying Englund with his own currency. Think our literature is too insular? Fuck off, geekazoid.

Personally I don't read much contemporary literature, but when I do, it is mostly from Ireland and the British Isles, so obviously I do not at all agree with Roth's assessment.

Still, the list of notable twentieth-century American authors who are still in print and widely read is impressive.

Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Julio Cortazar, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Milan Kundera, Naguib Mahfouz, Jose Saramago, Orhan Pamuk, Jorge Luis Borges, Heinrich Boll, Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, William Golding, Boris Pasternak, Chinua Achebe, Gunter Grass, Raymond Queneau, Anthony Burgess, V.S. Naipaul, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Doris Lessing, Carlos Fuentes, Wole Soyinka, Italo Calvino, Nadine Gordimer, Umberto Eco, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Haruki Murakami, Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Ondaatje, Herta Muller, J.M.G Le Clezio and Kenzaburo Oe...

Yeah, but think about it, you're listing writers/poets from more than 20 countries here. Maybe if you break it down country-by-country, American Lit won't look so shabby.

[adaorardor]

Personally, i don't think the Academy should give much thought to spreading the prize around between different countries, continents, and genders. I think they should spread the prize around between different LANGUAGES. That should be the distributional unit, not country or politics or gender.

[Corswandt]

Personally, i don't think the Academy should give much thought to spreading the prize around between different countries, continents, and genders. I think they should spread the prize around between different LANGUAGES. That should be the distributional unit, not country or politics or gender.

Or maybe they could, like, give it to the author who deserved it most because his literary output is just so awesome, regardless of gender, ethnicity, language, of having been or not a victim of persecution or of having been or not a notable public advocate of causes deemed worthy by the current dominant political sensibilities.

If that leads to the award being given to reclusive Nepalese writers 25 years in a row, then so be it.

[Daniel del Real]

I still think the idea of a Brazil-financed literary prize (e.g. the Lispector Award or the Machado the Assis Prize for International Literary Prowess) would boost Brazil's chances in the world of literature. Let the Portuguese speakers show up the Spanish-speakers, just for once.

Don't be ridiculous Eric, how can Lula Start a million dollar prize for Literature when the country still has very big issues regarding poverty and criminality. Although Brazil has a promisory economy there is no way to eliminate all the country's problem in just two decades. If Lula would start a prize with that amount of money he'd be strongly criticized and with a solid reason by the press and opposition.

The Booker Prize that has been referred to is not the yearly prize but the International Booker, the one that is awarded every two years as a career achievement prize (worth ?60,000). It considers writers working in English or whose work is generally available in translation into English. The three writers honoured so far are Ismail Kadare, Chinua Achebe and Alice Munro. So perhaps in time this one will be able to put up a challenge to the Nobel in terms of status....

For me, the best prize that has enough laurates reputation to challenge the novel, specially in recent years is the Premio Principe de Asturias de las Letras. Just look at the recent winners and there you can see what the Nobel Academy has been missing lately.

2000 Augusto Monterroso
2001 Doris Lessing
2002 Arthur Miller
2003 F?tima Mernissi
Susan Sontag
2004 Claudio Magris
2005 N?lida Pi??n
2006 Paul Auster
2007 Amos Oz
2008 Margaret Atwood
2009 Ismail Kadare
2010 Amin Maalouf

Interesting article. Suggesting that the Ladbrokes people have access to some inside information... And coming up with a shortlist of potential nominees:

Bella Akhmadulina
A.S. Byatt
Less Murray
Adam Zagajewski
Michel Tournier

From this list I only see Akhmadulina and Murray as real possible winner.
Tournier, not for Le Clezio
Zagaewski, not because last poet awarded was also Polish. They'll be giving a message that only Polish poetry is the one worth it.
Byatt no, another Brit?

However everything is possible with those old folks

[Amoxcalli]

Still, the list of notable twentieth-century American authors who are still in print and widely read is impressive.

Yeah, but think about it, you're listing writers/poets from more than 20 countries here. Maybe if you break it down country-by-country, American Lit won't look so shabby, .

I'm not saying it's rubbish (when I start counting great postwar American novels, I soon run out of fingers), but I'd also suggest that comparing literature from the United States to a single European country. It's probably more fair to compare the literature of the United States with the literature of the European Union, in which case the EU comes out more favourably, if you ask me.

Come to think of it, it's actually really rather difficult to find modern American fiction in book stores on this continent. A lot of non-fiction (tens of Obama's lined up, staring at you), but hardly any fiction. Most of the fiction they sell here is untranslated (Flemish/Dutch). The rest is either original English (almost exclusively UK), or work translated to either Dutch or English, in which case it's a very diverse selection; a lot of Nobel laureates. It always strikes me how most book stores seem to have a wide stock of novels from a very limited number of novelists.

[Liam]

It's probably more fair to compare the literature of the United States with the literature of the European Union

I don't see why you would (or indeed should) do that. Obviously there's been a lot of cross-pollination between different European countries throughout the centuries but the modern EU is hardly a wholesome political/cultural entity (it never has been).

Even financially, when the shit hits the fan, you see the so-called "fellow-members" of the EU sharply looking out for their own economic advantages (as well they should). I don't think Denmark particularly cares what happens to Portugal; the whole Iberian peninsula might as well disappear in the ocean; what do the Danes care.

With their multiplicity of languages, religions, traditions and historical experiences, not all EU countries are the same and therefore should not be lumped into one general category. No one's proposing to include Canada and Mexico (fuck it, the whole of Central America) in the general category of "American" literature: no, each country has an individual tradition (or a multiplicity of traditions) and deserves to be studied separately.

The only concession I'm willing to make is that, on some level, all these disparate literary traditions are part of something greater and, indeed, universal--i.e. the great Western tradition, of which America, Australia and many other places around the world are also part.

[Vazquez]

Don't be ridiculous Eric, how can Lula Start a million dollar prize for Literature when the country still has very big issues regarding poverty and criminality. Although Brazil has a promisory economy there is no way to eliminate all the country's problem in just two decades. If Lula would start a prize with that amount of money he'd be strongly criticized and with a solid reason by the press and opposition.

Hello.

First time here?!

I'm Brazilian and I must say a Brazilian-Nobel is close to impossible: you see, the folks here don't care too much about prizes (well, only about sports prizes). Our most famous movie award (Gramado) is totally ignored?

But about literature: Brazil and Portugal have created the "Pr?mio Cam?es" - they pay about 100K euros anually to the best Portuguese-writer they could think of? well, to give an example: in 2007 I've visited Portugal and Antonio Lobo Antunes has just won the award. Everywhere you went you could find mentions to it, his books got a paper band with "Vencedor do Pr?mio Cam?es" ("winner of?") in it, magazines, interviews, second printings, I mean, it's very important for them.

But here? This year is the winner was Ferreira Gullar, considered our best poet, and for many second only to Guimar?es Rosa in the Brazilian XX century literature. Well, nobody gave a damn. Gullar writes Sunday colums to our biggest newspaper, "Folha de S?o Paulo", and not even they have commented about the prize one day after it was given?

Last but not least, 2010 is the last year with Lula? next year we will have a new president.

But about the Nobel-prize, I must recommend this site:

Le monde

One of the suggestions caught my attention: Eduardo Galeano. I always tought he would deserve the prize? And you see, 2 winners of the Stig-Dagerman prize have won the Nobel on the very same year (Jelinek and Clezio).

[Corswandt]

Don't be ridiculous Eric, how can Lula Start a million dollar prize for Literature when the country still has very big issues regarding poverty and criminality. Although Brazil has a promisory economy there is no way to eliminate all the country's problem in just two decades. If Lula would start a prize with that amount of money he'd be strongly criticized and with a solid reason by the press and opposition.

1.000.000 USD is peanuts for a country the size of Brazil.

For me, the best prize that has enough laurates reputation to challenge the novel, specially in recent years is the Premio Principe de Asturias de las Letras. Just look at the recent winners and there you can see what the Nobel Academy has been missing lately.

[...]

2006 Paul Auster

[...]

Paul Auster? The Nobel wins by KO in the first round.

[JTolle]

For me, the best prize that has enough laurates reputation to challenge the novel, specially in recent years is the Premio Principe de Asturias de las Letras. Just look at the recent winners and there you can see what the Nobel Academy has been missing lately.

2000 Augusto Monterroso
2001 Doris Lessing
2002 Arthur Miller
2003 F?tima Mernissi
Susan Sontag
2004 Claudio Magris
2005 N?lida Pi??n
2006 Paul Auster
2007 Amos Oz
2008 Margaret Atwood
2009 Ismail Kadare
2010 Amin Maalouf

The Booker Prize that has been referred to is not the yearly prize but the International Booker, the one that is awarded every two years as a career achievement prize (worth ?60,000). It considers writers working in English or whose work is generally available in translation into English. The three writers honoured so far are Ismail Kadare, Chinua Achebe and Alice Munro. So perhaps in time this one will be able to put up a challenge to the Nobel in terms of status....

The Asturias I've known about and respect, and the International Booker is fresher on my radar. It seems like both have legitimacy: monetarily and critically. I think if someone or some organization could scrounge up a enough money to make a fair prize amount, and then go and award the masters whom the Academy have not yet honored, like it seems both these have done, you could possible have a prize that in say 30-40 years might rival the Nobel. But, admittedly, you'd have to start predicting younger writers as the Nobel has had a track record of doing, and that honestly takes an organization like the Academy who are dedicated to doing so.

Give it to: Chinua Achebe, Nicanor Parra, Amos Oz, Milan Kundera, Geoffrey Hill, Antonio Tabucchi, Juan Goytisolo, Ko Un, Cormac McCarthy. (And admittedly with some others thrown in cause you might not reach all of these before they die.) In 10 years you'd have a respected award, I'm sure of it.

But I'd like to think that for the mistakes they've made (big ones) the Nobel Prize for Literature will be the best at what they do for a long time.

[Daniel del Real]

1.000.000 USD is peanuts for a country the size of Brazil.



Paul Auster? The Nobel wins by KO in the first round.

Not the best choice, agree. But against Nobel choices like Jelinek or Lessing I'd still go for the Pr?ncipe de Asturias.

[Eric]

Thank-you Mirabell (#237). The Orthofer article is a sensible combination of viable names and the betting spirit. I'm going to read it through again and comment later. If I get the name of the winner right on the day, I expect one million dollars from every WLF poster. As I'm being so generous to myself, I'll give 10,000 dollars to Orthofer and also to Mirabell. But only if you all pay up first, allowing me to flee to the anonymity of Brazil to arrange a Latin American prize with Lula. Lula can then outdo the Swedes as I'll give any spare money to him so he can give ten million U.S. dollars to the winner of the Lula Lispector de Assis Prize Worth Lots of Money.

[Amoxcalli]

Liam, I honestly didn't want to give the impression that the literatures of Europe could be dumped on one heap and compared to American literature in terms of content. I merely suggested that, purely in terms of quantity, the United States should rival the number of "great authors" or "great books" that the European Union produces.

I meant to say that it's not fair to say that American literature is much more influential than Estonian or Albanian literature, simply because they have produced more ("great") books. It's inevitable that a country with 100 times as many inhabitants is going to produce more literature and make more of an impact on world literature. That doesn't mean it's qualitatively better. I, for example, don't think the United States has produced a novelist of the calibre of Jul?o Cort?zar, nor a novel more influential than One Hundred Years of Solitude.

The only things truly "American" in American literature, such as the Beat generation, stay in the US. As far as I know, there are no Beat writers outside the USA. But if you take, say, a Latin American "invention" such as magical realism, you see that it spreads across the world. The same goes for European Modernism. Literary developments in the US are, in my experience, often limited to the US; they don't spread across borders. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression that a lot of American literature is inspired by American literature, with very little influences from foreign literatures. Very isolated, if you will. A writer such as Mahfouz, who is the product of Arabic literary tradition and a strong Western influence, couldn't or simply hasn't emerged in the US.

I suppose you could say that I think that writers such as Philip Roth are far more American than Saramago is Portuguese, Mahfouz is Egyptian or Camus is Algerian. Which, in my opinion, makes their work more relevant to the rest of the world and thus more deserving of a Nobel prize. The Nobel prize, after all, is not just an international prize, but a global one.



Here's a little disclaimer: I haven't read all American authors and the exceptions are almost certainly there. Not one of the American authors I've read is deserving of a Nobel prize though (regardless of whether they're still alive etc.). I'm willing to take waalkwriter's word for it when it comes to Albee, because I know nothing about him, for example.

[adaorardor]

Wow what an ignorant comment. You've never read a single American author deserving of a Nobel Prize? Go read a novel by Melville or Twain or Hawthorne or Pynchon or Bellow, go read a poem by Eliot or Stevens or Merrill or Ashbery.

Actually, go read something by William Faulkner -- he probably had a greater influence on Garcia Marquez, Fuentes, and Vargas Llosa than any other modern author did. (as well as on Claude Simon, and on Lobo Antunes, etc etc etc.)

[miercuri]

The only things truly "American" in American literature, such as the Beat generation, stay in the US. As far as I know, there are no Beat writers outside the USA. But if you take, say, a Latin American "invention" such as magical realism, you see that it spreads across the world. The same goes for European Modernism. Literary developments in the US are, in my experience, often limited to the US; they don't spread across borders. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression that a lot of American literature is inspired by American literature, with very little influences from foreign literatures. Very isolated, if you will. A writer such as Mahfouz, who is the product of Arabic literary tradition and a strong Western influence, couldn't or simply hasn't emerged in the US.

It sounds like you're talking out of your ass, really. Exactly how familiar are you with American literature? You may believe that there are no American authors worthy of the Nobel living today, but that doesn't give you the right to generalize so grossly about American literature in its entirety. Modernism has been partly consolidated by American authors, most of whom were expats and had plenty of influences from "foreign literatures". Not to mention the impact American literature has had on postmodernism, starting with the 60's. Are you seriously complaining that American literature is culturally isolated? Relevance aside, take a look at the names on this list. Most of them are first or second generation Americans.

[JTolle]

I meant to say that it's not fair to say that American literature is much more influential than Estonian or Albanian literature, simply because they have produced more ("great") books. It's inevitable that a country with 100 times as many inhabitants is going to produce more literature and make more of an impact on world literature. That doesn't mean it's qualitatively better. I, for example, don't think the United States has produced a novelist of the calibre of Jul?o Cort?zar, nor a novel more influential than One Hundred Years of Solitude.

The only things truly "American" in American literature, such as the Beat generation, stay in the US. As far as I know, there are no Beat writers outside the USA. But if you take, say, a Latin American "invention" such as magical realism, you see that it spreads across the world. The same goes for European Modernism. Literary developments in the US are, in my experience, often limited to the US; they don't spread across borders. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression that a lot of American literature is inspired by American literature, with very little influences from foreign literatures. Very isolated, if you will. A writer such as Mahfouz, who is the product of Arabic literary tradition and a strong Western influence, couldn't or simply hasn't emerged in the US.

Here's a little disclaimer: I haven't read all American authors and the exceptions are almost certainly there. Not one of the American authors I've read is deserving of a Nobel prize though (regardless of whether they're still alive etc.). I'm willing to take waalkwriter's word for it when it comes to Albee, because I know nothing about him, for example.

Umm, have you read Faulkner, Hemingway, Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Nabokov (oh, yes, we certainly claim him), Henry Miller, Henry James, Emerson, Twain, Frost, Stevens, Melville? If not, speak about Americans who deserve a Nobel after you have.

And influence? I'd say Walt Whitman is probably one of the most influential poets in the World, whose work was definitely more 'American' than that of the Beats who draw lines of influence from Proust, the Romantic poets, and the Symbolists, and the French Surrealists. And tell me how many novelists have grown up in recent years without a profound respect for the American novel? Moby Dick, The Sound and the Fury, A Farewell to Arms, Invisible Man, Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

If you'd said that English-language literature is insular and self-propagating, you'd be more correct, but saying that American literature is like that ignores the influence of Joyce, Woolf, Shakespeare, Wilde, and the fact that everyone, including Americans, were influenced by the Boom Generation that you hinted at.

I'm not saying that I think DeLillo, McCarthy, Roth, or Pynchon, deserve it more than Llosa, Fuentes, Tabucchi, Oz, or Goytisolo, but damn man, they're great novelists, and though I haven't read all their works either, I wouldn't be surprised if they each have a masterpiece or two under their belts like so many people say.

[Daniel del Real]

Come on, leave this poor guy alone. I'm sure what he wanted to say is that right now, from the possible American winners to the Nobel Prize he doesn't like any of them.
I hope that is, other wise I have no other way on how to defend you my friend.

[Taleb]

There is no denial of the importance of American literature. May I add also that Edgar Allan Poe had sparked a poetical revolution with the french symbolists, as well as almost single handedly created genres in fiction writing( horror, science, and detective fiction). That's a long tadition. Marquez claimed in a famous essay that Faulkner( as you said) affected his written subject , and that Hemingway affected his style of writing( though I think Marquez's sentences are long compared to Papa Hemnigway!). 

 But I feel that Amoxcalli is realistic; since the beat generation went ''on the road'', prominent american literary figures were nearly invisible to the world. It is very difficult to name an american novel, that has captured the imagination of the world, at least by the works of Bellow( though he was a Nobel laureate) or any works of fiction listed in NY times best works of fiction that came out in 2006 that were close I would say to international bestsellers.( I could think lately of McCarthy's 'The Road'). There is much belief in the american literary scene of the death of the novel, and the health of the memoir and autobiographies, as I posted earlier. 

What is amazing is that american physicians, chemists, economists( especially them), professors in medecine or health care, dominate the nobel awards every year, and there is yet no american poet( with the mere exception of Eliot, though technically he was a british subject at the time, and the most europeanized of all U.S. Poets), that was awarded this prize at all, leave alone an american novelist or dramatist awarded since 1993.
The academy is very much respected on it's own views,anyways. No one but themselves can change their minds on the prize winners. But their choices of obscure/vaguely known writers were not interesting of course. Does their circle of interests still roam around tracking writers who challenged tyrannical communist systems, and produced a reasonable amount of work to award them the prize? Has is got the world interested in her works at all, other than heavy weight readers here? I doubt it. And I doubt it more with Jelenik, Kertez, Le clezio and Xingiiang.

[Amoxcalli]

Wow what an ignorant comment. You've never read a single American author deserving of a Nobel Prize? Go read a novel by Melville or Twain or Hawthorne or Pynchon or Bellow, go read a poem by Eliot or Stevens or Merrill or Ashbery.

I've read Melville and Twain. I think Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, E?a de Queir?s and Ibsen are more deserving of the Nobel prize, if you ask me. That said, I wouldn't mind seeing the prize go to either of them either. I don't think you can compare them with modern writers either, as whether a writer is deserving of the prize depends completely on the quality of his or her contemporaries.

I've started Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, but couldn't finish it. If there's a more accessibly novel by him, I'd be glad to read it. Maybe he does deserve the Nobel prize. I can't tell.

Same goes for the others, hence why I said that I had never read an American author deserving of the Nobel prize. I never meant to imply that they don't exist. I can't judge American literature. I can only observe it from my point of view.

Actually, go read something by William Faulkner -- he probably had a greater influence on Garcia Marquez, Fuentes, and Vargas Llosa than any other modern author did. (as well as on Claude Simon, and on Lobo Antunes, etc etc etc.)

Oh, I meant American writers who didn't actually get the prize. I think As I Lay Dying is really good so far (currently reading it). Faulkner definitely deserved the Nobel prize, although I'm pretty sure Gabo quite specifically mentions Cort?zar and Rulfo as prime influences. Hemingway deserved it too, but they weren't the writers I was referring to (or meant to refer to, anyway).

Since Roth was talking about American literature since the 60s, I was thinking primarily of writers such as Salinger, Kesey and Heller. They never deserved the Nobel prize in my book, even though they're considered "Great".

It sounds like you're talking out of your ass, really. Exactly how familiar are you with American literature?

Not nearly as familiar as I'd like to be.

You may believe that there are no American authors worthy of the Nobel living today, but that doesn't give you the right to generalize so grossly about American literature in its entirety.

I don't really think you can generalize about any literature in terms of quality anyway. Mind that I can only form an opinion based on what I encounter, which can't possibly be representative of American literature as a whole (again, if there's even such a thing as "American literature as a whole"). I'm certain my view of American literature is to a considerable extent distorted by what book stores decide to sell. I'm beginning to realize there's a massive gap between "the American novel" and novels written by Americans.

Are you seriously complaining that American literature is culturally isolated? Relevance aside, take a look at the names on this list. Most of them are first or second generation Americans.

Exactly my point. These are not the writers that are promoted abroad. Apparently, it's more of an image problem than anything else. I suppose the only American writers that ever appear in your standard Dutch book store are those that have an air of American-ness around them, and the American classics, which are about America or Americans most of the time, too (even a novel like A Farewell to Arms, though set in Italy, is dominated by the American main character).

Speaking of the list. Can you recommend any of them? I want to be proven wrong, but every time I pick up a novel written by an American, American culture is so dominant that I can't really get into the story. What is being marketed as "the American novel" doesn't appeal to me, but there must be hundreds of novels written by Americans that don't fit the marketing term "American novel".

[Amoxcalli]

Come on, leave this poor guy alone. I'm sure what he wanted to say is that right now, from the possible American winners to the Nobel Prize he doesn't like any of them.

That's right.

EDIT: I'm not sure about Nabokov. He probably should have gotten the Nobel prize at some point (or at the very least, it wouldn't have been undeserved if he had won it), but you can't just ignore the fact that he was born and raised Russian. He was well into his forties when he became an American. Is Kundera French or Czech? In Kundera's case, I'd definitely say Czech, but they're not really comparable, are they? Nabokov studied Slavic culture and was influenced mostly by Russian authors. He wrote his most famous novel in English, but not a large majority of his bibliography. I feel both American and Russian literature can convincingly "claim" Nabokov. I don't really mind either way. It doesn't change his works.

[JTolle]

EDIT: I'm not sure about Nabokov. He probably should have gotten the Nobel prize at some point (or at the very least, it wouldn't have been undeserved if he had won it), but you can't just ignore the fact that he was born and raised Russian. He was well into his forties when he became an American. Is Kundera French or Czech? In Kundera's case, I'd definitely say Czech, but they're not really comparable, are they? Nabokov studied Slavic culture and was influenced mostly by Russian authors. He wrote his most famous novel in English, but not a large majority of his bibliography. I feel both American and Russian literature can convincingly "claim" Nabokov. I don't really mind either way. It doesn't change his works.

Ten novels in Russian, 8 1/2 in English + Speak, Memory even including short story collections, and essays/lectures, his work splits pretty much 50/50. And though he wasn't a citizen until his 40s he'd written a fine English novel by 32. Lolita, Pale Fire, Ada or Ardor all written in English.

Ask Kundera what nationality he is, he'd say French. Was Joseph Conrad a Polish writer or a British writer? British, even though he wasn't fluent in the language until his 20's, something Nabokov was.

But you're right, it doesn't change his works, it just means English-language readers get his best stuff in the original.