His list has its own demerits. It's OBVIOUS. What is he saying, that the only reason you can win a Nobel is if your name is even vaguely familiar to English speakers? Has this person ever read Ivo Andric (yes, he IS available in translation) or Sigrid Undsett or Henryk Sienkieqicz? Or is it just easier to award the Nobel Prize in Literature to Cole Porter - "Anything Goes"?...
I'll be the first to agree that often my response to the NobelLit Prize is a confused, "Who?" - but there's a world of writers out there, and many of them are more than deserving even if their name IS obscure to Western ears. And maybe I'm just being over-sensitive again, but the comment that the committee "bends over backwards" to avoid honouring US-born writers smacks of America's usual self-centredness to me. It shouldn't matter where an author is born. At ALL.
And frankly... J K Rowling is a populist and popular writer, but she is hardly the Best of the Best. She just outsells everyone. Part of the Nobel award is money and fame, and she's already got more of both than a Nobel could possibly bestow on her.
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Date: 2007-10-16 05:01 pm (UTC)I'll be the first to agree that often my response to the NobelLit Prize is a confused, "Who?" - but there's a world of writers out there, and many of them are more than deserving even if their name IS obscure to Western ears. And maybe I'm just being over-sensitive again, but the comment that the committee "bends over backwards" to avoid honouring US-born writers smacks of America's usual self-centredness to me. It shouldn't matter where an author is born. At ALL.
And frankly... J K Rowling is a populist and popular writer, but she is hardly the Best of the Best. She just outsells everyone. Part of the Nobel award is money and fame, and she's already got more of both than a Nobel could possibly bestow on her.
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