Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 Speculation

[Americanreader]

Count me in among the Modiano's admirers. Continuing with the off-topic, if I'd have to pick my top three writers awarded with the Nobel this century it would be, in no particular order, Modiano, Coetzee and Müller.
The worst: Pinter, Le Clezio, DYLAN.

I might be in the minority here, but I love Pinter. His play Betrayal from 1978 is one of my favorite modern plays and one of the most devastating things I have ever read. I do think that Pinter suffers on the page, seeing him on stage or screen makes his style work better. (See the 1983 movie version of Betrayal, which is online, but not on DVD or Blu ray). I also really love No Man's Land, The Homecoming, The Dumb Waiter. His clipped style plays with hidden emotions and motives in a way that I find fascinating and often lends itself to dryly funny lines.

 

[Leemo]

There's been a good deal of discussion about Spanish/Portugese/Japanese writers, though I wonder if anyone is familiar with any writers that they think is worthy of the Nobel prize that writes in a language with a much smaller amount of native speakers, say less than 2 million worldwide?

I'm thinking how impressive it was for Halldor Laxness to have won the Nobel despite writing in a language that has just a few hundred thousand native speakers, though I presume he had the benefit of Scandinavian proximity to aid his notoriety. I wonder if there are others in similar situations that are equally as deserving.

 

[Papageno]

There's been a good deal of discussion about Spanish/Portugese/Japanese writers, though I wonder if anyone is familiar with any writers that they think is worthy of the Nobel prize that writes in a language with a much smaller amount of native speakers, say less than 2 million worldwide?

I'm thinking how impressive it was for Halldor Laxness to have won the Nobel despite writing in a language that has just a few hundred thousand native speakers, though I presume he had the benefit of Scandinavian proximity to aid his notoriety. I wonder if there are others in similar situations that are equally as deserving.

I think this is a great question and a mighty (but very worthy) challenge for the Academy to try to find exceptional authors who write in small languages - out of the last 8 laureates, 4 (!!!) write (or, well, sing) in English, and I really don't think that 50% of great books today are written in English (not by far).

A good laureate might be Sjón who is from Iceland. He may still be a bit too young (b. 1962), but is already very respected, much translated and has won multiple important awards (including Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2005 for Blue Fox). Icelandic is, as you mention, a very small language (c. 300,000 speakers), but it might be easier for the Academy to inform themselves about Icelandic authors, given that the language is, despite many important differences, still somewhat close to Swedish, and since there is certainly a lively interest for Iceland in Sweden in general.

 

[Morbid Swither]

I think this is a great question and a mighty (but very worthy) challenge for the Academy to try to find exceptional authors who write in small languages - out of the last 8 laureates, 4 (!!!) write (or, well, sing) in English, and I really don't think that 50% of great books today are written in English (not by far).

A good laureate might be Sjón who is from Iceland. He may still be a bit too young (b. 1962), but is already very respected, much translated and has won multiple important awards (including Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2005 for Blue Fox). Icelandic is, as you mention, a very small language (c. 300,000 speakers), but it might be easier for the Academy to inform themselves about Icelandic authors, given that the language is, despite many important differences, still somewhat close to Swedish, and since there is certainly a lively interest for Iceland in Sweden in general.

I 100% endorse Sjón for the Nobel!

 

[Liam]

Estonian: Jaan Kaplinski

Irish: Cathal O Searcaigh (but he's been accused of pedophilia so probably not)

I know a few writers writing in Welsh, Faroese, Maori, and Latvian: all very talented, but no one Nobel-worthy.

 

[Morbid Swither]

There's been a good deal of discussion about Spanish/Portugese/Japanese writers, though I wonder if anyone is familiar with any writers that they think is worthy of the Nobel prize that writes in a language with a much smaller amount of native speakers, say less than 2 million worldwide?

I'm thinking how impressive it was for Halldor Laxness to have won the Nobel despite writing in a language that has just a few hundred thousand native speakers, though I presume he had the benefit of Scandinavian proximity to aid his notoriety. I wonder if there are others in similar situations that are equally as deserving.

Like, Laxness, I second Icelandic author, Sjón.
But would also have to submit the names Mircea Cartarescu (Romanian), Ismail Kadare (Albanian), Afrikaans authors, such as Antjie Krog/Breyten Breytenbach of South Africa, Miljenko Jergovic (Croatian), Ngugi wa Thiongo (Gikuyu), Hamid Ismailov (Uzbek), or Mend-Ooyo Gombojav (Mongolian).

 

[Liam]

All of those languages have more than 2 million speakers (not that we should automatically stick to that number) but thank you for your list of names!

 

[Daniel del Real]

I think this is a great question and a mighty (but very worthy) challenge for the Academy to try to find exceptional authors who write in small languages - out of the last 8 laureates, 4 (!!!) write (or, well, sing) in English, and I really don't think that 50% of great books today are written in English (not by far).

A good laureate might be Sjón who is from Iceland. He may still be a bit too young (b. 1962), but is already very respected, much translated and has won multiple important awards (including Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2005 for Blue Fox). Icelandic is, as you mention, a very small language (c. 300,000 speakers), but it might be easier for the Academy to inform themselves about Icelandic authors, given that the language is, despite many important differences, still somewhat close to Swedish, and since there is certainly a lively interest for Iceland in Sweden in general.

What about Jón Kalman Stefánsson, Gyrðir Elíasson & Einar Már Guðmundsson?
I've only read the latest; I enjoyed immensely his novel Angels of the universe

Are there any other Dutch serious contenders apart from Nooteboom?

 

[DouglasM]

I read only The Blue Fox by Sjón. Interesting book, but not Nobel material. Maybe I should reread it in a better mood? Jón Kalman Stefánsson's Heaven and Hell, however, is nothing short of sublime. Unfortunately, the rest of the trilogy hasn't been translated here yet and probably never will.

 

[hayden]

I'd be cool with Sjón winning. I'd even go as far as saying I think he will. His new screenplay for Lamb went over extremely well at Cannes yesterday, and I imagine his penned collaboration with Robert Eggers for The Northman could land him some more hype next year. I think he already has an Oscar nomination, but it could land him his second.

Definitely prolific. Stage, poetry, novel, song lyrics, short stories, screenplays, accomplished air guitarist— should be enough.

Iceland's talent per capita has always been infuriating.

 

[tiganeasca]

Are there any other Dutch serious contenders apart from Nooteboom?

I am far from expert on modern Dutch-language literature but a few names occur to me: Connie Palmen (1955), Arnon Grunberg (1971), and Erwin Mortier (1965). I know little about Palmen and what I've seen does not suggest that she is or would be a serious contender. Grunberg, for whatever it's worth, has accumulated a big fistful of prizes and has a substantial body of work, including both novels and stories. I am most familiar with Mortier, having read three of his books. I enjoyed them all, though they are definitely...quirky. He too has prizes, but nowhere near the body of work or number of prizes as Grunberg. And, much as I like his work, I don't see him as a contender--at least not based on what he's produced so far (four or five novels plus some essays and some non-fiction). Perhaps Peter d will see this and weigh in!

(And though Liam's comment above referred to a living writer, I think the SA missed a great opportunity--for the 6,837th time --by failing to recognize William Heinesen, a Faroese writer who died in 1991.)

 

[Liam]

a language with a much smaller amount of native speakers

I suppose these would qualify: Basque, Frisian, Occitan, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Breton, Maltese (?), Galician, Faroese, Catalan (?), Georgian, Armenian, Albanian, Karelian, Sami... and that's just Western and Eastern Europe.

I can't begin to imagine the sheer number of "smaller" languages spoken in the rest of the world, in Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Americas, etc.

It'd be nice to become familiar with at least one author from each of these languages, but because they are "small" and we in the Anglophone world are notoriously bad at translating new authors, many of these writers remain un- or under-translated (to English, in any case; I hear the situation is much better when it comes to French and German translations of foreign works).

 

[Liam]

OK, I'm not claiming that these authors are Nobel-worthy, just if anyone is curious to check them out:

Basque: Bernardo Atxaga (novelist)
Faroese: Sissal Kampmann (poet)
Galician: Eva Moreda (novelist), Martín Veiga (poet)
Georgian: Nana Ekvtimishvili (novelist, recently nominated for the International Booker Prize)
Irish: Cathal Ó Searcaigh (poet), Máire Mhac an tSaoi (poet, still alive at almost 100 years of age!)
Occitan: Aurélia Lassaque (poet)
Sami: Niillas Holmberg (poet)
Welsh: Jerry Hunter (novelist), Menna Elfyn (poet)

 

[hayden]

(And though Liam's comment above referred to a living writer, I think the SA missed a great opportunity--for the 6,837th time --by failing to recognize William Heinesen, a Faroese writer who died in 1991.)

Heinesen wrote to the SA insisting they don't award him. He may just have won had he not. We actually discussed this not too long ago, but I forget in what thread.

Oddly, the reason he didn't want to win negates your point— he didn't write in Faroese. Although he spoke it as his mother tongue, the majority of his work was written in Danish.

OK, I'm not claiming that these authors are Nobel-worthy, just if anyone is curious to check them out:

Basque: Bernardo Atxaga (novelist)
Faroese: Sissal Kampmann (poet)
Galician: Eva Moreda (novelist), Martín Veiga (poet)
Georgian: Nana Ekvtimishvili (novelist, recently nominated for the International Booker Prize)
Irish: Cathal Ó Searcaigh (poet), Máire Mhac an tSaoi (poet, still alive at almost 100 years of age!)
Occitan: Aurélia Lassaque (poet)
Sami: Niillas Holmberg (poet)
Welsh: Jerry Hunter (novelist), Menna Elfyn (poet)

And neat! Think I've heard of Atxaga, but the rest are new names to me.

 

[Dante]

Basque: Bernardo Atxaga (novelist)
Faroese: Sissal Kampmann (poet)
Galician: Eva Moreda (novelist), Martín Veiga (poet)
Georgian: Nana Ekvtimishvili (novelist, recently nominated for the International Booker Prize)
Irish: Cathal Ó Searcaigh (poet), Máire Mhac an tSaoi (poet, still alive at almost 100 years of age!)
Occitan: Aurélia Lassaque (poet)
Sami: Niillas Holmberg (poet)
Welsh: Jerry Hunter (novelist), Menna Elfyn (poet)

Woah, never heard about the 99% of these names! But I know at least one Georgian author that is probably Nobel-worthy: Nino Haratischwili.
But here I'm cheating a bit since she writes in Georgian and German…

 

[garzuit]

Jaume Cabré (novelist) writes in Catalan. I think his name was mentioned in the 2020 Nobel thread.

 

[Americanreader]

Doris Kareva, the Estonian poet, maybe. I'd love to see more of her work in English. She only has two books, and I don't think the translation of the one I read did her full justice. Lots of great lines buried in poems that didn't get quite all the way there.

 

[tiganeasca]

Oddly, the reason he didn't want to win negates your point— he didn't write in Faroese. Although he spoke it as his mother tongue, the majority of his work was written in Danish.

Fair enough; I knew he had written in Danish but forgot. Oops. ? Still, though Danish is clearly more widely spoken than Faroese, his books dealt with the Faroe Islands and their communities. Want it or not, he deserved it....

 

[Daniel del Real]

Manuel Rivas is a very well known name for the Spaniard publishing world and he writes in Galician.

 

[hayden]

Fair enough; I knew he had written in Danish but forgot. Oops. ? Still, though Danish is clearly more widely spoken than Faroese, his books dealt with the Faroe Islands and their communities. Want it or not, he deserved it....

Don't get me wrong, I would have been all for it. He's the sort of writer the award is in place for.

I've only read The Lost Musicians and Laterna Magica, but I'm hoping to dive into The Black Cauldron somepoint soon. Had he won in the early 80s, I imagine many more of his works would be available. As the 70s archives slowly come out, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see his name appearing more and more.