I'm watching the Nobel Prize "twitter" feed and the live-blogging at The Guardian.
I don't know why I'm so interested this year — perhaps because the other news is boring me or the non-boring news isn't being reported — because I expect the name to be virtually unknown to me.
I see Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is in the running. "His short fable, The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright, was originally written in Gikuyu and became the most translated story in the history of African literature."
And then there's Can Xue, Mircea Cărtărescu, Gerald Murnane, and László Krasznahorkai.I see names I know in the running. For example, Haruki Murakami. But Kazuo Ishiguro won in 2017, so it's too soon to get back to Japan.
Is it time yet for another American? "We" haven't won since 2016. That was the Bob Dylan year. Can't get over that.
ADDED: Watch the live announcement here, at 6 a.m. Central Time.
AND: The winner is a Norwegian. Jon Fosse — "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable."
BUT: I was wrong to say that Bob Dylan was the last American to win. 8 days after writing this post, I saw the obituary for Louise Glück:
Louise Glück, an American poet whose searing, deeply personal work, often filtered through themes of classical mythology, religion and the natural world, won her practically every honor available, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and, in 2020, the Nobel Prize for Literature, died on Friday at her home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 80.
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52 comments:
But Kazuo Ishiguro won in 2017, so it's too soon to get back to Japan.
What a damning phrase! There shouldn’t be a Nobel Prize for literature, there shouldn’t be a Nobel Prize for anything that can’t be judged objectively, and your review of this year’s contenders is the perfect example of why.
THe most unusual diacritical mark will win. I'd guess a San !click language.
“which give voice to the unsayable."
If only.
I wonder what’s unsayable in Norway.
The Nobel prizes are a joke. They gave Barack Obama a peace prize before he'd actually done anything. And he kept it. That was the year they jumped the shark.
You remember Barack Obama right? He's the only American president other than Abraham Lincoln to order the death of American citizens without even charging them with any crimes.
The Nobel prizes are a joke. They gave Barack Obama a peace prize before he'd actually done anything. And he kept it. That was the year they jumped the shark.
You remember Barack Obama right? He's the only American president other than Abraham Lincoln to order the death of American citizens without even charging them with any crimes.
I wonder what’s unsayable in Norway.
That you're better than someone else.
A vote here for Paul Reubens.
The unsayable used to be the Love that Dare not Speak its Name.
Praytell what is it now?
Jon Fosse lives in an honary residence on the grounds of the royal palace here in Oslo. I walk by it all the time when I do walking tours. Now I'll have add that to my tour and somehow voice how he gives voice to the unsayable.
I wonder what’s unsayable in Norway.
Erik the Red was a gerbil abuser.
I just discovered the origin of Oprah's Book Club, and why it got all screwed up, from Judge Joe Brown. A NewAger starting a book club - and not recommending anything about crystals - was NOT normal. There had to be a story.
By the way, Oprah made a big deal about Maya Angelou, who was my babysitter. She once read an awful poem at Bill Clinton's inauguration. These associations embarrass me.
I know, I know - it's not the Nobel in literature - but it's all I got.
"I wonder what’s unsayable in Norway."
Norwegians.
---Praytell what is it now?
That Knut Hamsun was a great writer.
The caged Crack sings…
Is the unsayable also at all readable?
They ceased being an objective measurement of anything and became an attempt to get clicks, recognition and political statements.
Obama was the most ludicrous. Now the COVID jabs just won one, so untested, dangerous drugs that made BILLIONS is the criteria. They are as ridiculous as newsweeks awards.
Less than five million people are native speakers of Norwegian. Talk about a niche market for a writer. I assume he is a big deal in Scandinavia, but this sure looks like home cooking to me.
Taxpayer-supported NPR ends its writeup with this unprompted editorializing:
The Nobel Committee has been criticized for its focus on European and Anglo writers. In the past 20 years, only five writers of color have been awarded the literature prize.
@Buckwheathikes
Maybe the killing of Americans who were not convicted of a capital crime and without due process is why they voted Obama a Nobel peace prize.
Kazuo Ishiguro and Doris Lessing wrote sci-fi. So that's okay now?
How shocking. I was expecting an Afghani or Ukrainian, or another Jew or extreme leftist/communist. Perhaps a Nevertrumper.
Are they trying to tether the prize to literary merit? It'd be a change of pace.
Those of you criticizing the Obama Nobel Peace Prize have forgotten or are ignoring the same award going decades earlier to Yasser Arafat. That was 1994, the year the Nobel Peace Prize became not just a joke but a lie.
Shelby Foote told me once about his service on an American history book award jury. His favorite was dismissed by the other jurors (mostly academics) on the grounds that the author used "I" twelve times in the first couple of pages.
It strikes me that one definition of inane futility would be to read all the Nobel Lit Prize winners' works.
Not "Joey: The Story of Joe Biden" by Jill Biden?
Youd think I made that up but I'm not.
48 pages for only $11 on kindle.
People helping people.
Maybe next year. I'm a Cub fan. Thats how we roll.
Once again Lazlo Spatula is overlooked.
He will remain the second most famous Fosse.⁷
The winner is a Norwegian. Jon Fosse — "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable."
The unsayable drama -- two hours and three acts of apoplexy. Nah, in the Age of Ugly, we couldn't be so fortunate.
Less than five million people are native speakers of Norwegian. Talk about a niche market for a writer. I assume he is a big deal in Scandinavia, but this sure looks like home cooking to me.
Not quite home cooking as the Nobel Prize in Literature, as all the others except the Peace Prize, is given out in Sweden and determined by a Swedish instition. If there's any home cooking it's in Sweden as there have been 8 Swedish winners of the Literature prize to Norway's 4 (Sweden is a bit under twice the population of Norway). Inerestingly, Henrik Ibsen, the most important writer to come out of Scandinavia, didn't get the Literature Prize, even though a Norwegian contemporary of his did.
Norway has punched aboved it's weight culturally since the mid 1800's for a country that doesn't have English as a mother tongue and is located on the perifery. Take Peer Gynt that Ibsen wrote, Grieg composed the music and Edvard Munch did the poster.
Literature as the wish to find the beauty and significance of your moment and put it into words changes with the era. Writers, by and large, don't write epic poems or sprawling novels anymore. The Nobel Prize people recognized this when they gave the award to Bob Dylan. They must move further to keep up with the times. There are You Tube influencers and Twitter posters who had a huge impact on their followers. Their words moved millions and have led many to a better place. I guess the Kardashians are a little too commercial for the Nobel's taste, but Obama's posts on Twitter (now X) have illumined and sanctified our times. Perhaps Obama should be given the Nobel, not so much for the great books he has already written, but for his twitter posts. Such an award would honor not just Obama but the Nobel Prize Committee itself.
I'm not that familiar with Norwegian literature, but wasn't there some beloved Norwegian author and Nobel Prize winner who turned out to be a full blown Nazi? That was a change of pace from all the Stalin apologists like Rolland who paid homage to Stalin. win some lose some.
Pedophilia and grooming? And so much more.
Amexpat said... Interestingly, Henrik Ibsen, the most important writer to come out of Scandinavia, didn't get the Literature Prize, even though a Norwegian contemporary of his did.
There are several things to consider as to why this might be so.
1) Ibsen died in 1906; the first Literature prize was awarded in 1901. Since there is a requirement for Nobel Prizes that the awardee must be alive at the time of the award, this only allowed a 4-5 year period for Ibsen's consideration.
2) Nobel stated that the prize be awarded to an author "in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction." Perhaps the committee at that time period did not feel that Ibsen's works were in an "idealistic direction"?
3) Ibsen's works were considered controversial at the time of their publications. We often look back over many years and deem works which were not popular at the time with much more enthusiasm, but remember that the committee judging the works in the early twentieth century did not have this historical viewpoint.
4) Finally, you could always say that there is no accounting for taste - even among 'experts'. There are multitudes of excellent writers who have never received a Nobel Prize for Literature, and there are those past prize winners who are now considered obscure. Bottom line is that these awards are based on the thoughts of a narrow group at a given time, and should not really be considered as an absolute assessment of greatness.
What's unsayable in Norway now?
I am a practicing Catholic who believes in the value of prayer. My writing reflects this. That's who this man is.
"give voice to the unsayable."
Sounds like the reviewer is talking about opera.
William, that was Knut Hamsun.
The Wikipedia listicle for Nobel Prize Literature Winners is fascinating. Even well-educated and widely-read people won't know 90-95% of the names.
@Whiskeybum 11:16
Your 2 & 3 are the likely reasons for Ibsen not winning the prize. His works were not considered to be in an "idealistic direction" at that time. Writing about a wife leaving her husband in "A Doll's House" or veneral disease in "Ghosts" was not considered morally uplifting.
His Norwegian contemporary, Bjørnsterne Bjørnson, won in 1903. At that time Ibsen was much more widely known and published in Europe. So the Nobel Literature committee was certainly aware of Ibsen during his lifetime.
I'm not that familiar with Norwegian literature, but wasn't there some beloved Norwegian author and Nobel Prize winner who turned out to be a full blown Nazi?
That would be Knut Hamsun. He was never a Nazi but he did admire Hitler and wrote a glowing obituary for him on the last day that the Germans controlled the Norwegian newspapers (no one can accuse him of being an opportunist). Even worse, he gave his Nobel Literature Prize to Josef Goebbels at a Germanic culture conference he attended during WW II. The ironic thing was that Hamsun didn't speak German but was well versed in English as he had lived in the US. So Hamsun, as a keynote speaker at the Germanic culture conference, had to speak in English.
There are some mitigating things for the damning facts above. Hamsun was a contrarian by nature. He hated the English with a passion and what he viewed to be the morally corrupting city life they promuglated. This made him open to Nazi propganda at his advanced age. When he met with Hitler during WW II, he started giving Hitler a hard time about how things were run in Norway and Hitler got furious with him, telling his interpeter that he never wanted to see Hamsun again.
But, Hamsun is truly a great writer. Despite his supporting the Nazis he was widely read in Israel. Issac Bashevis Singer said that "the whole school of fiction in the 20th century stems from Hamsun". There were even some complaints from the Soviets when the Norwegians put him on trial after WW II.
If you want to give him a try, I'd read some of the early novels, like "Hunger, "Mysteries" or perhaps "Pan", the most accessible of his early books.
I haven't paid any attention to the Nobels since they gave Rigoberta Menchu the Peace Prize. Absolute fake of a woman. Like everything else, it's just political farce and has been for decades.
“I wonder what’s unsayable in Norway.”
That selling oil while publicly believing in global warming is hypocritical.
"give voice to the unsayable."
To me, this is like a Shaman speaking a tale about how the world was made. A motivated fantasy.
It’s funny, the literal translation of Fosse is gush or pour. A Foss is a waterfall. Ordene fosset ut, the words poured out.
"which give voice to the unsayable."
Was Tucker Carlson nominated? Why not?
There should be an award for the Star Spangled Banner, which is unsingable.
"Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o"
Did Fosse get the award for correctly pronouncing this person's name?
Kazuo Ishiguro is English, not Japanese.
"say the unsayable"
Decades ago, Ursula LeGuin wrote (from my memory) "Art is about saying things that cannot be said with words. Novels are art that does that WITH WORDS."
It's in her preface to "Left Hand of Darkness", but my copy is not at hand...
“Kazuo Ishiguro is English, not Japanese.”
He’s an English citizen now, but he was born in Japan, and was a Japanese citizen most of his life, so I think the Japanese background is stronger than the English background when you think in terms of culture. But I don’t mean to fight on this point I knew he was an English citizen. I just didn’t choose to put that in the post.
I'd vote for Ngungi. I haven't read the work mentioned here, but his Wizard of the Crow is a marvelous tour de force.
"There should be an award for the Star Spangled Banner, which is unsingable."
To fight the unfightable foe, to win the unwinable war. To reach the unreachable star!
This is my quest. "give voice to the unsayable."
He’s an English citizen now, but he was born in Japan, and was a Japanese citizen most of his life, so I think the Japanese background is stronger than the English background when you think in terms of culture. But I don’t mean to fight on this point I knew he was an English citizen. I just didn’t choose to put that in the post.
Ishiguro may have been born in Japan and be of Japanese ancestry, but I question whether his Japanese cultural background is stronger than his English cultural background, given that he has lived in England since he was 5, has been a British subject since he was 28 (he was even knighted by the Queen), has been educated in England, has used English as his primary language nearly his entire life, and has written all his literary works in English. While I’m sure his work has been informed by his Japanese background to some degree, it seems to have been written mainly from an English cultural perspective (e.g., it’s hard to think of a recent novel that’s more characteristically English than Remains of the Day). So, the Nobel Committee would have been wrong to consider Ishiguro’s Nobel as a “win” for Japan and therefore think it was “too soon” to give a Nobel to Murakami or some other Japanese writer.
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