In The Age Jason Steger has Lunch with Les Murray.
About getting the Nobel Prize -- for which he's often considered a contender -- Murray says:
About getting the Nobel Prize -- for which he's often considered a contender -- Murray says:
I'm not sure what good it would do if it did. It would get you pursued by a whole lot of people who didn't know what they were pursuing you for. Seamus [Heaney, the Irish poet who won the Nobel in 1995] rang me up and I said, 'What does it entail, Seamus, how long does the interference with your life go on ?' And he said, 'About two years.' Who'd want it ?Only two years ? I'm surprised -- and I'm sure some authors willingly milk all that ... interference for all it's worth, and for as long as possible.