4 oct 2011

Nobel?

Is the Nobel prize for Literature still relevant to anyone? I don't remember any winners in the past few years aside from Vargas Llosa, but I'm in a Spanish department so I would notice that. A prize in the first decade of the 21st century doesn't seem that relevant for a writer who made his main contribution in the 60s and 70s. My undergraduate Spanish majors didn't even know he had won the prize two weeks afterwards. When I asked them what writer had just won, they said "Gabriel García Márquez." An obscure writer who wins will just slip back into obscurity after a burst of publicity.

8 comentarios:

Spanish prof dijo...

I don't like Elfriede Jelinek (2004), but I certainly knew about her, and the German professor in my department considers her one of the most important living writers in German language. I don't remember the year, but when Saramago won, my grandmother was very happy (he was her favorite writer at the moment). Not my cup of tea, but he was a good writer.

Clarissa dijo...

I really like Saramago. Jelinek is not for me but people in Germanic Studies tend to be wildly enthusiastic about her.

Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish Nobel winner of the recent years, is brilliant.

What I didn't get is why this Le Clézio guy got the Nobel Prize. Who even heard of him? I remember when he got the Prize, people at the French section of my department had an urgent round table to discover who he even was. :-)

Profesor F-B dijo...

I really like Saramago, but never read Jelinek. However, I have to bring up Doris Lessing (2007). I think she is one of the best writers in the English language alive.

Jonathan dijo...

Lessing made her contributions centuries ago. She should have one when she was a more relevant figure, in my opinion.

Profesor F-B dijo...

Maybe, but you have to take into account that by those standards Vargas Llosa shouldn't have won last year either. His contributions were also made a while ago!)

Jonathan dijo...

Yes, that's what I said in my post. Why give a prize that late to someone like that?

Profesor F-B dijo...

You are right, I just like her a lot, and was carried away in my own thoughts forgetting what you said before. That happens when you are trying to blog, watch a movie, and grade at the same time!)

Vance Maverick dijo...

The requirement (never officially relaxed so far as I know) that the prize go to work of an "idealistic tendency", and the combined restriction to authors who are (a) long established and (b) alive, together make the prize a strange artifact. I get the point of awards like the Booker, but the Nobel eludes me.