Franz Kafka Prize

[adaorardor]

I suppose it's impossible for any prize to overtake the Nobel any time soon in mainstream "prestige" terms, but I think that the Franz Kafka Prize has overtaken it in terms of my personal respect. The other challengers to the Nobel seem to have made a number of questionable decisions recently, while the Kafka Prize has made even better choices than the Nobel IMO. Fifty years from now, could we be looking at this award as having the same prestige as the Nobel??

Here're the writers they picked:

Year Winner Nationality
2011 John Banville Ireland
2010 Václav Havel Czech Republic
2009 Peter Handke Austria
2008 Arnošt Lustig Czech Republic
2007 Yves Bonnefoy France
2006 Haruki Murakami Japan
2005 Harold Pinter United Kingdom
2004 Elfriede Jelinek Austria
2003 Péter Nádas Hungary
2002 Ivan Klíma Czech Republic
2001 Philip Roth United States

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Let's make a comparison:

Year Kafka Nobel
2010 Havel Vargas Llosa
2009 Handke Müller
2008 Lustig Le Clezio
2007 Bonnefoy Lessing
2006 Murakami Pamuk
2005 Pinter Pinter
2004 Jelinek Jelinek
2003 Nádas Coetzee
2002 Klíma Kertesz
2001 Roth Naipaul

I cannot follow your statement that the Kafka prize decisions are better than the Nobel ones, not at all. I think it is a bit ridiculous, the Kafka prize has three Czech writers in 10 years and too many central European ones, I would not consider it to be a real international literature prize. But maybe it will get better in the future? I do not think so. I guess it is part of the deal for a "Kafka" prize...

[Heteronym]

I think it's an impressive list, but unless the winner takes home one million dollars, I doubt it will upstage the Nobel Prize any time in the future.

[Rumpelstilzchen]

I think it's an impressive list, but unless the winner takes home one million dollars, I doubt it will upstage the Nobel Prize any time in the future.

Yes, I think both lists are impressive actually, the Nobel one is more international. The prize money corresponds to approximately one million euros btw , which is even 1.4 million dollars...

[adaorardor]

It's true, maybe I should walk my statement back. I do think the Nobel has made better decisions in the past decade than in the previous dozen years, when it made bad choices in Dario Fo, Szymborska, Toni Morrison, Gordimer, and Camilo Jose Cela. But if we compare just the past 11 years, we have two shared laureates (Pinter and Jelinek, both great choices) and then...

Kafka Nobel
Nadas Naipaul
Handke Coetzee
Bonnefoy Pamuk
Havel Muller
Banville Kertesz
Roth MVL
Murakami Le Clezio
Lustig Lessing
Klima ?

I think the list on the left is just as strong. I think that historically, when people look back, they will view Nadas and Handke as two of the major major major writers of the current half-century and Nobel has picked neither of them, Kafka did. Frankly I'd put Nadas over anyone on Nobel's list and Handke over anyone besides maaaaybe Naipaul. Also, on the diversity point, we'll have to see whether they continue awarding Czech authors the prize disproportionately (the Nobel was certainly disproportionate in its early years btw) and if they fail to pick more women...BUT in two important respects they are ahead of the Nobel diversity-wise: they picked a poet (Bonnefoy, a great choice) and they picked Havel, which is of course partly for his plays but probably equally for his essays and non-fiction writings- and the Nobel has picked nobody for non-fiction/essays/philosophy/etc OR for poetry in quite a while.

Let's make a comparison:

Year Kafka Nobel
2010 Havel Vargas Llosa
2009 Handke Müller
2008 Lustig Le Clezio
2007 Bonnefoy Lessing
2006 Murakami Pamuk
2005 Pinter Pinter
2004 Jelinek Jelinek
2003 Nádas Coetzee
2002 Klíma Kertesz
2001 Roth Naipaul

I cannot follow your statement that the Kafka prize decisions are better than the Nobel ones, not at all. I think it is a bit ridiculous, the Kafka prize has three Czech writers in 10 years and too many central European ones, I would not consider it to be a real international literature prize. But maybe it will get better in the future? I do not think so. I guess it is part of the deal for a "Kafka" prize...

[Liam]

I can't believe that you can have enough audacity to characterize Szymborska as a "bad choice" and then proceed to portray Jelinek as a "good choice." Szymborska blows Jelinek out of the water, thanks for asking, .

[adaorardor]

I actually really like Szymborska's poetry but there are too many better poets who should've gotten the prize ahead of her, including another Pole (Herbert!).

[Stiffelio]

I can't believe that you can have enough audacity to characterize Szymborska as a "bad choice" and then proceed to portray Jelinek as a "good choice." Szymborska blows Jelinek out of the water, thanks for asking, .

I agree and I would add that Gordimer was not a bad choice at all; if anything, Coetzee was the poorer choice among SA writers.

[adaorardor]

Wait, now Gordimer is a better writer than Coetzee??? Be serious.

[Rumpelstilzchen]

I can't believe that you can have enough audacity to characterize Szymborska as a "bad choice" and then proceed to portray Jelinek as a "good choice." Szymborska blows Jelinek out of the water, thanks for asking, .

Interesting that you keep saying this. How good are the translations actually? Do you know? You cannot read German, right? YOu always have to take the translations into account.

Are you sure that you do not only have a problem with the contents and topics of her work in general, or at least of the books you have read? How does this influence your opinion? Why else do you have such a strong opinion on this author? Are you not a bit baffled by the fact that she practically won every damn literature award there is to win despite the very controversial contents of her books? Why is this

Ok, I see now that this issue has some history here on this forum . So apparently Mirabell could not convince you, then I will not even try to...

[Rumpelstilzchen]

I think the list on the left is just as strong. I think that historically, when people look back, they will view Nadas and Handke as two of the major major major writers of the current half-century and Nobel has picked neither of them, Kafka did. Frankly I'd put Nadas over anyone on Nobel's list and Handke over anyone besides maaaaybe Naipaul. Also, on the diversity point, we'll have to see whether they continue awarding Czech authors the prize disproportionately (the Nobel was certainly disproportionate in its early years btw) and if they fail to pick more women...BUT in two important respects they are ahead of the Nobel diversity-wise: they picked a poet (Bonnefoy, a great choice) and they picked Havel, which is of course partly for his plays but probably equally for his essays and non-fiction writings- and the Nobel has picked nobody for non-fiction/essays/philosophy/etc OR for poetry in quite a while.

Yes, as I said, both lists are strong.

Well, if Handke never gets nobel prize he should blame himself for his stupid statements and actions with respect to certain war criminals. If the nobel academy does not take him for this reason, I can totally understand them. There are probably a dozen living German writing authors who will go into history as major writers and who will also not get the prize. This is the same stupid discussion as always, the Nobel academy took Müller "instead", period. She is also brilliant and deserved the prize 100%. So what is the problem here? Nadas is still not dead, so maybe he will get the Nobel, who knows. And Havel is not a very good example, I mean, think it through: he was only the third Czech in 10 yeras to get the Kafka prize, which means the other two are probably considered as more important. So no problem for me if the Nobel committee (having a more international agenda) is not considering him, because already the Kafka prize committee did not consider him the most important Czech writer.

Sure YOU would make a list like the Kafka prize, someone else would make a list more like the Nobel one and a third person would take completely different writers. This is not the point. The quesion is if the laureats are important writers or not. And I think both prize jurys have done a good job in the last decade.

Now, lets see if the Nobel goes to a poet this year

[Rumpelstilzchen]

And another point I would like to make. I am not familar with the non-ficton works of all these writers, neither with the poetry, so I am just taking the wikipedia entries:

Vargas Llosa: "writer, politician, journalist, essayist"
Müller: "novelist, poet and essayist"
Le Clezio: "author and professor" (but I find a lot of essays, stories, autobiographical works etc. in his bibliography)
Lessing: "novelist"
Pinter: "playwright"
Jelinek: "playwright and novelist"
Pamuk: "novelist"
Coetzee: "novelist"
Kertesz: "novelist" (but I can find a lot of essays, autobiographical books etc.)
Naipaul: "novelist [...] written works of non-fiction, such as travel writing and essays"

So several of these authors are actually quite at home in several forms of literature. You are right, a poet is missing on this list, i.e. someone who mainly or solely writes poetry. Not to forget that prose has been dominating literature the last decades and even longer.

[miobrien]

So who here is happy/disappointed Banville got the award. I'm a pretty big Banville fan so I'm happy for him. I wonder if this will help him with the Nobel crowd. But then again, as Liam pointed out in the Nobel thread, Banville's weaknesses are that he is very artsy and apolitical.

[Stiffelio]

Wait, now Gordimer is a better writer than Coetzee??? Be serious.

Absolutely, and by a long shot IMHO.

[Liam]

Interesting that you keep saying this. How good are the translations actually?

The translations are excellent; and I've read three of her novels in full and also tried reading a fourth (The Children of the Dead), which was unreadable; in TWO different languages (English and Russian), so I don't think it is my fault.

Jelinek is not a talentless hack; but I just don't see her as Nobel-worthy. But then again, half the Nobel-list was/is not really Nobel-worthy, so I don't know why I'm wasting my breath trying to explain this.

[miobrien]

Absolutely, and by a long shot IMHO.

What have you read by Coetzee? Just wondering

[Daniel del Real]

Wait, now Gordimer is a better writer than Coetzee??? Be serious.

I support that. There is no way than Gordimer is better than Coetzee at leat not IMO and in the opinion of most people that have read them both.

[Stiffelio]

What have you read by Coetzee? Just wondering

I've read Waiting for the Barbarians and The Life & Times of Michael K, both of which were excellent. Then it was downhill from those: I didn't like Disgrace nor Elizabeth Costello. I stopped reading Coetzee after those although I might read him again (I have Age of Iron waiting for me).

I support that. There is no way than Gordimer is better than Coetzee at leat not IMO and in the opinion of most people that have read them both.

The problem is, Daniel (and others on this discussion), that very few people make the effort to read Gordimer in depth. She is a difficult writer to get into, I grant it; her prose is very dense, every one of her convoluted sentences are charged with meaning and metaphor and she is ultra-heavy with ideas, unrelenting to the point of exasperation sometimes. But there hasn't been any other writer in Africa who has delved so deeply into South Africa's socio-historical problems and moral dilemmas, during and after apartheid. Her literature, in this sense, is old fashioned: she belongs with the Conrads and the Dostoeisvkys of this world. In other words, her literature is tanscendent. Add to that her amazing collection of essays she's written over more than fifty years and you have one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Coetzee, on the other hand, is an ingenious "see-how-brilliant-I-am" postmoderm writer, but his literature has little depth aside from the gimmickry. And of late he has turned to auto-fiction which I don't find very interesting at all. All of Coetzee's books taken together don't stand comparison with, for example, Gordimer's The Conservationist or with My Son's Story or with the rather recent The Pick-up.

[Daniel del Real]

I think the Kafka prize has been doing a good selection overall, the problem is that obviously it's too eurocentric and three Czechs in the last 10 years it is too much.
I'd like to make a comparison to another international literary awards that has been doing very well in my opinion the last decade: Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras.
Let's compare the three of them:


Year/Kafka/Nobel/Príncipe de Asturias
2010/ Havel/ Vargas Llosa/ Amin Maalouf
2009/ Handke/ Müller/ Ismail Kadaré
2008/ Lustig/ Le Clezio/ Margaret Atwood
2007/ Bonnefoy/ Lessing/ Amos Oz
2006/ Murakami / Pamuk/ Paul Auster
2005/ Pinter/ Pinter/Nelida Piñón
2004/ Jelinek/ Jelinek/ Claudio Magris
2003/ Nádas/ Coetzee/Susan Sontag
2002/ Klíma/ Kertesz/Arthur Miller
2001/ Roth/ Naipaul/Doris Lessing

With the exception of Brazilian Piñón and probably Paul Auster who I like but that for many is a light weight the rest are brilliant choices. The only common denominator in the three prizes: Doris Lessing. Incredible how she got so many awards with that weak feminist literature of hers.
In bold the ones I think should have won the big one that year (In 2005 neither Pinter or Piñón are of my personal tasting/ 2009 and 2010 great winners of both Nobel and Príncipe de Asturias)

[adaorardor]

Wait, how have you read part of The Children of the Dead in English? I didn't think they'd finished the translation...(DUke Univ Press, was it?)

The translations are excellent; and I've read three of her novels in full and also tried reading a fourth (The Children of the Dead), which was unreadable; in TWO different languages (English and Russian), so I don't think it is my fault.

Jelinek is not a talentless hack; but I just don't see her as Nobel-worthy. But then again, half the Nobel-list was/is not really Nobel-worthy, so I don't know why I'm wasting my breath trying to explain this.