Picking the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature Winner
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On Friday, according to Reuters, we’ll find out who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. But until then, speculation abounds: Will Philip Roth finally win the most esteemed literary prize? What about Joyce Carol Oates or Thomas Pynchon? Will the committee even seriously consider an American writer? Is it Salman Rushdie’s year, or Twitterer Margaret Atwood’s? What about Milan Kundera or Amos Oz?
Don’t ask me.
I gave up on trying to predict the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature long ago. That’s partly because my predictions are shaped by my particular literary tastes, which happen to be all of the above writers, as well as plenty of others, many of whom probably aren’t even on the selection committee’s radar. By extension, my predictions are limited by everything I haven’t read.
I also gave up on predicting the winner because the process seems like a crapshoot. There’s no publicly accessible shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature like there is for, say, the UK’s Man Booker Prize, which will be announced today. There’s no long list either.
Instead, the selection process goes something like this: The Swedish Academy send out nomination invitations to professors of literature, previous Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature, presidents of societies of authors, and members of the Swedish Academy and other similar academic academies. Qualified literary types who don’t receive an invitation can also submit their nominations. Nominators can’t select themselves, but they can choose just about anyone else. (Apparently, Alfred Nobel only said the literary Nobel Prize “should be an award for the most outstanding work ‘in the direction of an ideal.’” Even Professor Horace Engdahl, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, admits not knowing exactly what that ideal is.)
And that’s just the first phase. The Nobel Committee of Literature’s four or five members then try to give the process some order, sorting through the nominations, coming up with a secret list of five favorites, and presenting their recommendations to the Swedish Academy, which then votes and chooses the writer that receives at least half of the votes.
The winner, I suspect, gets the honors, in part, because he or she is the least controversial or disliked by the committee members. Which explains why the winners are rarely people who have been in the news or published a bestseller recently.
But none of this is stopping bookies from offering up odds on the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. The site Ladbrokes has developed a list of possible winners. The favorite is Israeli writer Amos Oz, who gets 4-to-1 odds. But apparently, the bookies’ favorite almost never wins, according to the Guardian and who New Yorker editor David Remnick called “an old lion on the Israeli left, [who is] considered conservative by many in Europe.” According to The New Yorker’s Book Bench blog, “That’s a bad sign for [Oz's] chances with the Nobel committee, which has been accused in recent years of putting far-left politics before aesthetics.” There’s also the issue of Oz being Israeli, period, which could make him a controversial choice.
Fairly high on the list are a number of Americans, including Roth and Joyce Carol Oates (both 7-to-1), Pynchon (9-to-1), Don DeLillo (16-to-1), and, believe it or not, Bob Dylan (25-to-1), whose songwriting makes him a poet of sorts. (He’s also the author of a memoir.) So will it be an American’s year? Not necessarily. The long list is filled with plenty of great non-American writers, many I’m sad to say I hadn’t heard of before now.
Even though that I stopped trying to predict the winner myself, I love seeing who other people think will win. So take a look at Ladbrokes’ odds list below, and post a comment about who you think will survive the selection process and come out the winner this year. If you pick the winner, you just might be the subject of a future Bookmarked post. Now go forth and predict:
Selection Odds
Amos Oz 4/1
Assia Djebar 5/1
Luis Goytisola 6/1
Joyce Carol Oates 7/1
Philip Roth 7/1
Adonis 8/1
Antonio Tabucchi 9/1
Claudio Magris 9/1
Haruki Murakami 9/1
Thomas Pynchon 9/1
Thomas Transtromer 12/1
Arnot Lustig 16/1
Atiq Rahimi 16/1
Don DeLillo 16/1
Ko Un 16/1
Les Murray 16/1
Mario Vargas Llosa 16/1
Yves Bonnefoy 16/1
Cees Nooteboom 20/1
Peter Handke 20/1
Alice Munro 25/1
Bob Dylan 25/1
Juan Marse 25/1
Margaret Atwood 25/1
Ngugi wa Thiongo 25/1
A.B Yehousha 40/1
A. S. Byatt 50/1
Bei Dao 50/1
Carlos Fuentes 50/1
Chinua Achebe 50/1
Gitta Sereny 50/1
Herta Muller 50/1
Mahasweta Devi 50/1
Michael Ondaatje 50/1
Milan Kundera 50/1
Vassilis Aleksakis 50/1
Adam Zagajewski 66/1
E.L Doctorow 66/1
Harry Mulisch 66/1
Peter Carey 66/1
Umberto Eco 66/1
Salman Rushdie 80/1
Beryl Bainbridge 100/1
Cormac McCarthy 100/1
David Malouf 100/1
Eeva Kilpi 100/1
Ernesto Cardenal 100/1
F. Sionil Jose 100/1
Ian McEwan 100/1
John Banville 100/1
Jonathan Littell 100/1
Julian Barnes 100/1
Kjell Askildsen 100/1
Marge Piercy 100/1
Mary Gordon 100/1
Maya Angelou 100/1
Michel Tournier 100/1
Patrick Modiano 100/1
Paul Auster 100/1
Rosalind Belben 100/1
William H Gass 100/1
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I’m embarrassed to say I’ve only read seven of those on this list and I read 1-3 books a week in most months. I had actually read Saramago, who I think won this category most recently.
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This list is pretty unbelievable, isn’t it? So many authors I’ve never read or heard of. On the upside, I suppose it means we’ll never run out of books to read. Alas, I haven’t read Saramago, who won in 1998.
Alice Munro is Canadian.
You’re right. My bad. It’s been fixed. I live so close to Canada that I have a bad habit of lumping Canadians with Americans. Certainly not fair to them.
In response to another comment. See in context »Someone needs to call this like the Kentucky Derby:
“And they’re off! . . .Djebar jumps out to a quick lead, Oz and Goytisola both tight on the rail. Roth, Adonis, Tabucchi and Oates make up the bulk of the pack as they go into Turn 1. All the 9-1 shots bring up the rear but then there’s Adonis, in last place, he’s 8-1.
“Rounding Turn 1, Oz and Goytisola come neck and neck with Djebar. Oz is the 4-1 shot everyone is talking about. Now here comes Oates — this is her kind of track: crowded and a little wet. She’s moving on up the leaders. . . ”
Place your bets — it’s only literature.
Love it! So much more fun when you put it that way. If only writers movd that quickly …
In response to another comment. See in context »When I was publisher of Urizen Books, in the late 70s Lars Gustaffson came by who very much needed an American publisher and we went for a long walk through what was then called “the landfill” and is now Battery Park City down along the Hudson, and discussed that in about 25 to thirty years it was time for another Skani to win the prize! He isn’t even on the list, fine and interesting writer that he has become, done by New Directions I think, but he knows all the judges, so for some inside dope says someone who also edited but fortunately not publishing Bob Kalich’s THE HANDICAPPER [or: How Became a Millionaire betting nickels and dimes for the Jewish Mob!]
In response to another comment. See in context »Well, for what it’s worth, the list was created by bookies. It’s certainly possible that the committee is considering people not on that list.
In response to another comment. See in context »Bookies don’t fly blind, Laura. My author Bob Kalich – his customers bet on college basketball, and even fixed some teams – was on the phone for nights on end to get the inside dope on injuries, etc. E.G. when the University of Washington Huskies basketball team played in fairly intimate and very loud Hec Ed arena, that was, let’s say, worth six extra points in the “spread” – the bookie made his money that way! So the boys and girls at Ladebroke have some kind of dope. A Skandinavian [Skandi], give him or her those extra six points in the spread for playing at home! I wonder whether there’s a Vegas line on this, for Kalich it was a matter of doing better than the Vegas line, and so he had informants at all the colleges!
In response to another comment. See in context »You’re right, @mikerol — there are certainly many factors that bookies consider when developing odds. But while I can’t claim to know much about the topic, I doubt the the method or odds for things such as the Nobel Prize in Literature are quite as scientific. I say this because the Nobel Prize nomination process is so secretive. The Swedish Academy has a policy of waiting 50 years before disclosing nominees’ names. Maybe I’m just naive and like to think that it’s more top secret than it is, but my guess is that the bookies don’t have quite the direct line to the Nobel Prize that they do to sports. (Then again, Ladbrokes did apparently give higher odds to winner Herta Mueller just days before the Nobel Prize was announced, so …)
In response to another comment. See in context »I am just wondering what the odds were on Elfriede Jelinek winning when was it about five years ago, and whether she was even on anyone’s list? who then turned around and said that Handke ought to have won it in Austria. How many Nobel Prize winners nominate someone more important than themselves? http://www.elfriedejelinek.com/
I am giving 5:1 that Handke wins within the next five years!!!
In response to another comment. See in context »Rignt you are Laura on bookies, the legal as well as illegal, not being as scientific with Nobel Prize winners for Literature. I will try to find out via Hanser Verlag who Lars Gustaffson had picked this year. I am not at all surprised by their choice of Herta Mueller, a true Nobel Prize choice, true to their form. Her name had been spooking around the background of my mind the past few days once I saw the list, and that she was even on it. Nothing really wrong with that, but nothing really right with that either. Old school Humanism. Yrs. truly Michael Roloff
In response to another comment. See in context »When I was an editor at Arcade Publishing, we had the Albanian novelist, Ismail Kadare, on our list. There were always whispers that ‘this was the year!’ Didn’t happen, alas. Some of his novels are pretty extraordinary.
Maybe this will finally be his year. It seems people often win this thing after you’ve stopped wagering on them.
In response to another comment. See in context »Very strong wrist-slap to Laura (even if you live a mere 90 minute drive from Toronto) for confusing Canadian writers of the stature of Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood as…Americans! Atwood, who attended my high school, was my first “celebrity interview” when I was 17 and we were studying her book “Surfacing” in class and I was editor of our school paper.
It’s true, no Canadian of that stature (or any stature, for that matter) should ever be subjected to that confusion.
In response to another comment. See in context »As Handke’s first American translator and editor and now a Handke specialist but also critic, I favor him for what the immense body of his work has done for the LOGOS. He will win if not this year once the tantrum he threw at the disintegration of Yugoslavia fades into the background, not that I would throw a tantrum over that matter, but I happen to agree with Handke’s position and ctd. to be amazed the 90 % of the washed and unwashed across the entire political spectrum bought the story that TV and the papers sold to them about the Serbians and Milosevic being responsible.
The list is a good one, I could live with Philip Roth, William Gass and Cormac McCarthy from the U.S.; Patrick Modiano from France, Adonis; Carlos Fuentes; Ian McEwan… then there are about ten writers whose work I don’t know at all. Africans and Asians I’m afraid to say. Here’s a link to a huge amount of Handke material on the WW Web: http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.html
By all that is fair in this world, Philip Roth will win the 2009 Nober Prize for Literature.
If they give it to Bob Dylan, we should invade Sweden.
I’m with you. I fear their defense may simply be, “The Times They are a Changin’.”
In response to another comment. See in context »i don’t know, it would open up people’s thinking. handke actually wouldn’t mind deferring, take a look at some point at chapter 2 of his A SLOW HOMECOMING where he writes better about Dylan than has anyone else… and does so by NOT NAMING him! I have meanwhile set up a betting site where I am wagering that Handke will win between 2010 and 2015, and am giving 5:1 odds:
In response to another comment. See in context »http://handke-nobel.scriptmania.com/
Achebe deserves the Nobel, perhaps more than any other on this list.
Nothing wrong with Achebe, he’s even at Brown University right now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinua_Achebe
In response to another comment. See in context »I will ask my Nigerian friends, all scientists at the University of Washington what they think. I expect they will love him…
I think maybe there should be a half dozen Nobel Prizes, one for each continent, there are a dozen writers who are deserving on that list. My insistence on Handke is because I knew quite precisely the many ways he has really enlarged the capacity for communicating, and also why.
A London Betting site
Nobel Prize for Literature 2009 Betting Odds | Systemlays Free …
By Number 10
Peter Handke 20/1. Shlomo Kalo 20/1. Alice Munro 25/1. Arno�t Lustig 25/1. Bob Dylan 25/1. Juan Marse 25/1. Les Murray 25/1. Ngugi wa Thiongo 25/1. Yves Bonnefoy 25/1. Atiq Rahimi 40/1. Margaret Atwood 40/1 A. S. Byatt 50/1 …
Systemlays Free Sports Betting Tips – http://www.systemlays.co.uk/
says not to bet the favorites but make a side bet on Handke. I myself have translated two Nobels, a lot of Hesse and Nelly Sachs, and published Montale. There are great winners, like Thomas Mann, Elliot, Faulkner, Bellows, and some not so great, like Tony Morrison…
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