Once again, it's time for the Nobel Prize in literature.
The secretary of the Swedish Academy, Horace Engdahl, recently got himself into some trouble with his comments about American literature. If you can read Swedish, check out this article. And if not, here is one in English.
Basically, Engdahl criticized American literature and suggested that not much good is coming out of the U.S., literature-wise at least, now (also implying that American writers better not hope for a Nobel any time soon!). What do you think? Is American literature more insular than that of other countries? Do any Americans deserve a Nobel Prize for their writing?
This year's winner is Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.
Opinions?
Finds for Writers
8 hours ago
4 comments:
Americans: I certainly don't think Americans are too insular to deserve a world-literature prize. Many poets think John Ashbery would deserve the Nobel, and given his influence on poetry in other languages (French and German being the two that I know about), that would be justifiable. Then we always hear of Roth and DeLillo and Pynchon as candidates, and all of them would be worthy. If Engdahl explicitly said that Pynchon is too insular, then he gets an F in Pynchon class; I may not be a Pynchon fanatic, but his work is global in its reach and its ambition.
As for Le Clézio, that is a nice surprise (even though he was listed at 14-1 on the odds list that Jonathan Mayhew posted on his blog)! I've never read his work but he is a major figure in France.
Thanks for your comment, Andrew! It is interesting that Engdahl made his comment about Americans, but also said that the best lit these days is (still) coming from Europe. I haven't seen much of a response to that part -- what about literature from Africa, Asia, Australia, South America, the Middle East, etc? Is the literary tradition in Europe really so much better and more advanced than that from elsewhere?
Anyway, I'd heard of Le Clézio as being on the list for several years, but I admit that I haven't read his work. I will do that now!
Best wishes,
BJ
Well, the Academy seems to agree with Engdahl: since the last American won the Prize (Morrison in 1993), only three prizes have gone to non-Europeans (Oe, Xingjian, and Coetzee), unless you say that Pamuk is not European.
Morrison, though, was the last of an eight-year run in which only Cela was European (unless you count Brodsky as European).
Engdahl could also say that poets are not doing good work, at least as far as the Academy is concerned: the last writer who won it for poetry was Szymborska in 1996. BUT before that there was a small semi-cluster of poets: Heaney, Walcott, Paz, and, if we go back a bit further, Seifert in 1983 and Milosz and Elytis a few years earlier.
I just spent more time thinking about that than I should have! :-)
You might find this article that someone sent me interesting: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/30/nobel-literature-chief-ba_n_130619.html
Best wishes,
BJ
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