Five weeks and counting, that seems the best bet as to when they'll announce this year's Nobel Prize in Literature; "The date will be set later" is the official stand (and will be until the week of the announcement), but with the rest of the Nobels to be announced starting 6 October, and the Thursday of that week conveniently left announcement-free (the literature prize is always announced on a Thursday in October), it's likely the Swedish Academy (the folks who decide who gets this thing) will be shooting for 9 October
So: time to start speculating !
First off, let's start with where we are in the process: Peter Englund (the Swedish Academy's Nobel point-man) revealed that they started out (in February) considering 210 authors for the prize this year. By April, the Academy's Nobel Committee had presumably whittled this down to the usual 20 or so names, and then before the lengthy summer break they had further cut this down to a list of five or so candidates, from which the winner will be chosen.
The academicians were presumably busily reading the works of the (give or take) five finalists over the summer. But the actual deciding-on-a-winner hasn't happened yet: they've presumably started informal discussions, but they'll probably only manage to reach the final big decision towards the end of September. (If the announcement isn't scheduled for 9 October and delayed until the 16th (or 23rd ...) it likely means deliberations did not go well and, taking so much longer, that it was difficult for them to settle on a laureate.)
So at this point we can -- sort of -- speculate about the identity of the finalists, but do little more than guess at who they'll settle on to actually get the prize.
While the academicians do try to keep their reading secret, that can prove hard to do, and occasionally there are ... educated guesses as to who they've been reading up on over the summer. This is -- sometimes, possibly -- reflected in the changing odds of the betting shops who have a book on the Nobel. And so, for example, in The Guardian, Alison Flood reports that Ngugi wa Thiong'o tipped for 2014 Nobel prize in literature, based on the betting at Ladbrokes.
Never mind that Ladbrokes actually have Murakami Haruki as the 5/1 favorite ..... But Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's odds have improved: Ladbrokes have had a book open since just after last year's Nobel Prize announcement, and he started out at 33/1 and he is now down to 10/1 -- a significant leap. On the other hand, Philip Roth has moved from 50/1 to 16/1 ..... [I would also be slightly more reassured that any of this is to be taken in any way seriously if Ladbrokes managed to spell Ngũgĩ's name correctly: I can understand skipping the diacritical marks, but even then, it's not -- as they have it -- "Ngugi wa Thiog'o".]
Is this in any way meaningful ? Since the changing odds are based on a: "run of bets originating in Sweden" it's worth paying a bit of attention. Ngũgĩ is an obvious Nobel-favorite, and there have been suggestions (many of them mine ...) he's been in the mix over the past couple of years; Roth is a more complicated case, but it seems distinctly possible that they decided to throw him into the final mix for one last hurrah (though with most of the bets on him apparently originating in the UK -- i.e. less likely to be well-/insider-informed -- his improved odds probably shouldn't be taken quite as seriously as Ngũgĩ's).
People correctly note that it's a bit absurd to take these betting odds very seriously, but I suggest again they offer pretty damn good guidance. Yes, it's very unlikely that the betting favorite (at least until the last hours and minutes before the prize is announced, when leakage is more/most likely) takes the prize -- but for quite a while now the winner has always been one of the early favorites: Alice Munro was fifth-favorite when betting opened on last year's prize (at 12/1); Mo Yan was a 12/1 second-favorite already in late-August in 2012; Tomas Tranströmer was one of the favorites for all of 2011; etc. So it is a decent -- arguably even good -- bet that the winner this year comes from the currently favoured quintet of Murakami, Assia Djebar, Ngũgĩ, last year's hot bet (and likely finalist), Svetlana Alexievich (Aleksijevitj in the Swedish tranlsiteration), and ... Joyce Carol Oates. Okay, maybe not Oates (two English-writing North American woman in succession ? can't see it).
The most significant caveat and note: the Ladbrokes list this year is disappointingly limited -- 29 names to bet on (and one of those is the ridiculous Bob Dylan ...), a big let-down from the usual 100+ names on offer. They'll probably add some, but this does reduce the value of the list as a whole
The only other book I can find online is Paddy Power's -- with similar names/odds (but compare if you're going to wager !) including Murakami as betting favorite, and with Ngũgĩ (correctly spelled !) at 4/1. They have 28 choices -- but that includes J.K.Rowling, so .....
I'll have more speculation in the coming weeks -- and I'll be following the odds, and their shifts, closely. Note also that there is on-going discussion/speculation at the World Literature Forum (the only messageboard where there seems to be much action, at this time).
So: time to start speculating !
First off, let's start with where we are in the process: Peter Englund (the Swedish Academy's Nobel point-man) revealed that they started out (in February) considering 210 authors for the prize this year. By April, the Academy's Nobel Committee had presumably whittled this down to the usual 20 or so names, and then before the lengthy summer break they had further cut this down to a list of five or so candidates, from which the winner will be chosen.
The academicians were presumably busily reading the works of the (give or take) five finalists over the summer. But the actual deciding-on-a-winner hasn't happened yet: they've presumably started informal discussions, but they'll probably only manage to reach the final big decision towards the end of September. (If the announcement isn't scheduled for 9 October and delayed until the 16th (or 23rd ...) it likely means deliberations did not go well and, taking so much longer, that it was difficult for them to settle on a laureate.)
So at this point we can -- sort of -- speculate about the identity of the finalists, but do little more than guess at who they'll settle on to actually get the prize.
While the academicians do try to keep their reading secret, that can prove hard to do, and occasionally there are ... educated guesses as to who they've been reading up on over the summer. This is -- sometimes, possibly -- reflected in the changing odds of the betting shops who have a book on the Nobel. And so, for example, in The Guardian, Alison Flood reports that Ngugi wa Thiong'o tipped for 2014 Nobel prize in literature, based on the betting at Ladbrokes.
Never mind that Ladbrokes actually have Murakami Haruki as the 5/1 favorite ..... But Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's odds have improved: Ladbrokes have had a book open since just after last year's Nobel Prize announcement, and he started out at 33/1 and he is now down to 10/1 -- a significant leap. On the other hand, Philip Roth has moved from 50/1 to 16/1 ..... [I would also be slightly more reassured that any of this is to be taken in any way seriously if Ladbrokes managed to spell Ngũgĩ's name correctly: I can understand skipping the diacritical marks, but even then, it's not -- as they have it -- "Ngugi wa Thiog'o".]
Is this in any way meaningful ? Since the changing odds are based on a: "run of bets originating in Sweden" it's worth paying a bit of attention. Ngũgĩ is an obvious Nobel-favorite, and there have been suggestions (many of them mine ...) he's been in the mix over the past couple of years; Roth is a more complicated case, but it seems distinctly possible that they decided to throw him into the final mix for one last hurrah (though with most of the bets on him apparently originating in the UK -- i.e. less likely to be well-/insider-informed -- his improved odds probably shouldn't be taken quite as seriously as Ngũgĩ's).
People correctly note that it's a bit absurd to take these betting odds very seriously, but I suggest again they offer pretty damn good guidance. Yes, it's very unlikely that the betting favorite (at least until the last hours and minutes before the prize is announced, when leakage is more/most likely) takes the prize -- but for quite a while now the winner has always been one of the early favorites: Alice Munro was fifth-favorite when betting opened on last year's prize (at 12/1); Mo Yan was a 12/1 second-favorite already in late-August in 2012; Tomas Tranströmer was one of the favorites for all of 2011; etc. So it is a decent -- arguably even good -- bet that the winner this year comes from the currently favoured quintet of Murakami, Assia Djebar, Ngũgĩ, last year's hot bet (and likely finalist), Svetlana Alexievich (Aleksijevitj in the Swedish tranlsiteration), and ... Joyce Carol Oates. Okay, maybe not Oates (two English-writing North American woman in succession ? can't see it).
The most significant caveat and note: the Ladbrokes list this year is disappointingly limited -- 29 names to bet on (and one of those is the ridiculous Bob Dylan ...), a big let-down from the usual 100+ names on offer. They'll probably add some, but this does reduce the value of the list as a whole
The only other book I can find online is Paddy Power's -- with similar names/odds (but compare if you're going to wager !) including Murakami as betting favorite, and with Ngũgĩ (correctly spelled !) at 4/1. They have 28 choices -- but that includes J.K.Rowling, so .....
I'll have more speculation in the coming weeks -- and I'll be following the odds, and their shifts, closely. Note also that there is on-going discussion/speculation at the World Literature Forum (the only messageboard where there seems to be much action, at this time).