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Nobel Prize in Literature???


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Well, that time of the year is coming up again. Personally, I am clueless, I can only say who will NOT be awarded - it will not be a Swede as we had Tomas Tranströmer, it will not be a woman as we had a couple recently and the time has come round for prose, hence no poet. Yet, who knows...

If you want to have some fun I urge to have a look at the long list of possible authors which Ladbrokes (the betting people) always make. So, look up:

www.Ladbrokes.com. Go to Betting A-Z, Awards/Nobel Prize in Literature. Have some fun and you will be guaranteed to find authors you have never even heard about!

Any ideas, or who do you think deserves it?

When the day comes for the Swedish Academy to announce the laureate, I will sit here glued to the TV and you will get the news with a delay of only a minute or so.

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Oh dear, the Nobel Committee has changed the order of presentation. There was indeed a presentation, but today there were the awards for medicine and it will be shared by three Americans, all from Yale (I think): James E. Rothman, Randy W. Sherman and Thomas Sudrot.

Sorry to have to keep you guessing about the literature prize, but I will be back with the news when it is announced.

Dirac, I fear you might be right again!

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Alice Munro is apparently is second place at the last minute (4-1), just behind Haruki Murakami, according to the Guardian citing Ladbrokes. Thomas Pynchon is in the top ten, as is Péter Nádas. Javier Marías (Infatuations/Your Face Tomorrow) seems to have fallen a bit, and Amitav Ghosh (the finely layered In an Antique Land and Glass Palace) is not listed at all.

Interesting but meandering article against "global novels" – with easy English translation in mind and denuded of local politics and cultural nuances (Murakami, Eco, Kundera) – by Pankaj Mishra in a recent issue of the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/6e00ad86-26a2-11e3-9dc0-00144feab7de.html#axzz2hILohQEB

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I watched the press conference afterwards and everybody seemed very pleased. Alice Munro has been on the list for many years, and now finally!

I think it was very well received indeed. There was an interview afterwards with a panel of literary experts and her publisher here in Sweden, everybody was jubilant.

As she is something of a recluse, the question is, will she be coming here for the award ceremony? The Nobel committee hadn't been able to reach her on the phone, so they had sent her an email. Now we must keep in mind that it is night in Canada now, so what an awakening when she checks her mail first thing in the morning!

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Great news, terrific choice.

Dirac, I fear you might be right again!

Oh, I'm always pleased when Roth doesn't get it, Pamela. He can always weep on the shoulder of the nearest available writer for The New Yorker.

Thank you for the link, Quiggin. A quote:

And it would be untenable to deny that there are diverse reckonings with issues of class, race, religion and gender, and a bracingly ambivalent relationship with nationalism and global capitalism, in the work of Nadeem Aslam, Teju Cole, Hisham Matar, Tash Aw, Tan Twan Eng, Kamila Shamsie, Mohammed Hanif, Damon Galgut, Tahmima Anam, Zoë Wicomb, Laila Lalami, Helon Habila, Aminatta Forna and Pettina Gappah.

I'm embarrassed that so many of those names are only names to me (and some not even that).

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Great news, terrific choice.

Dirac, I fear you might be right again!

Oh, I'm always pleased when Roth doesn't get it, Pamela. He can always weep on the shoulder of the nearest available writer for The New Yorker.

Thank you for the link, Quiggin. A quote:

And it would be untenable to deny that there are diverse reckonings with issues of class, race, religion and gender, and a bracingly ambivalent relationship with nationalism and global capitalism, in the work of Nadeem Aslam, Teju Cole, Hisham Matar, Tash Aw, Tan Twan Eng, Kamila Shamsie, Mohammed Hanif, Damon Galgut, Tahmima Anam, Zoë Wicomb, Laila Lalami, Helon Habila, Aminatta Forna and Pettina Gappah.

I'm embarrassed that so many of those names are only names to me (and some not even that).

That makes it a reading list for us both.

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It has been announced that Ms. Munro will not be able to attend the award ceremony and the following banquet. This is a great pity, but also understandable, she is not a young person and it is first of all a long journey and then a very busy week with a lot of functions. Someone will receive the prize on her behalf - might be the Canadian ambassador, and her Nobel lecture could always be relayed by link from Canadian Broadcasting. The reason given was that her "health is frail" and that was quite accepted. But I remember the uproar in the media when Elfriede Jelinek did not attend the ceremony because she said she was too shy to appear in public. As the press remarked, there was no shyness about accepting the cash!

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Why should she be shy about accepting the cash? She was selected by the committee for her output -- she didn't apply for it -- and she wasn't given the cash for making speeches and shaking hands. A nice thank-you note should have been fine.

As some people say now -- word.

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The giving of a lecture is indeed part of the deal in receiving the prize. It doesn't have to be made at the ceremony itself but recipients are generally expected to make one at some point. I would think that it would be nice for recipients whose personal circumstances allow them to do so to appear. It's a big award.

It has been announced that Ms. Munro will not be able to attend the award ceremony and the following banquet. This is a great pity, but also understandable, she is not a young person and it is first of all a long journey and then a very busy week with a lot of functions. Someone will receive the prize on her behalf - might be the Canadian ambassador, and her Nobel lecture could always be relayed by link from Canadian Broadcasting. The reason given was that her "health is frail" and that was quite accepted. But I remember the uproar in the media when Elfriede Jelinek did not attend the ceremony because she said she was too shy to appear in public. As the press remarked, there was no shyness about accepting the cash!

Too bad. I wish the Committee hadn't taken so long to honor Munro. Maybe this will teach them to get to deserving recipients in a timely fashion....

Pamela, as I remember it wasn't only a question of Jelinek being "too shy" - I have read that she suffers from agoraphobia and related problems. If that's the case, a week of celebrations would be very difficult for her. She did present a lecture, although not at the ceremony, obviously.

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Every year I have written something about the Nobel Prize ceremony. It was yesterday and I do hope you all have seen something on TV. I did not, unfortunately. We had a

storm and no electricity for five days (got by with a wood burning stove and candles). Alice Munro did not attend, but her prize was received by her daughter. Ms. Munro was not the only one not to attend, the Crown Princess had gone to South Africa for the memorial service of Nelson Mandela, and Princess Madeleine, Mrs. O'Neill, had to remain in N.Y. owing to her pregnancy. Still, there will be another glittering feast next year...

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