I haven't really gotten into much Nobel-speculation yet -- even though the announcement-date is only about six weeks off -- but there hasn't been much gossip in the air so far (even though the Swedish Academicians have long narrowed down the list to the final five or so contenders).
(But if you want pre-Nobel activity: there has been pretty active discussion at The Fictional Woods and the World Literature Forum -- and of course you can already place bets at Ladbrokes.)
Not that much media coverage, either, but in The Japan Times Damian Flanagan gets things rolling with his look at Mishima, Murakami and the elusive Nobel Prize.
(Note that I don't think he makes quite enough of the fact that Mishima's Nobel chances were surely mainly dashed by his youth, and then his death at a very early age -- only three authors (Kipling, Sinclair Lewis, and Camus) were 45 (Mishima's age at his death) or younger when they won the prize; the average age of literature laureates in the 1960s was -- despite Camus -- 65, and in the 1970s 69.)
(As to the: "here we are now, with only two Japanese winners in the 114 years since the prize was first awarded", a reminder that there still hasn't been a Dutch winner. (No Korean one either, etc. etc., but Dutch still ranks as the most glaring omission to date.))
Not that much media coverage, either, but in The Japan Times Damian Flanagan gets things rolling with his look at Mishima, Murakami and the elusive Nobel Prize.
(Note that I don't think he makes quite enough of the fact that Mishima's Nobel chances were surely mainly dashed by his youth, and then his death at a very early age -- only three authors (Kipling, Sinclair Lewis, and Camus) were 45 (Mishima's age at his death) or younger when they won the prize; the average age of literature laureates in the 1960s was -- despite Camus -- 65, and in the 1970s 69.)
(As to the: "here we are now, with only two Japanese winners in the 114 years since the prize was first awarded", a reminder that there still hasn't been a Dutch winner. (No Korean one either, etc. etc., but Dutch still ranks as the most glaring omission to date.))