It's that time of the year again, and the Nobel Prize in Literature may very well be announced one week from today, on 8 October.
(The prize is always announced on a Thursday in October -- but the Swedish Academy only reveals the actual date of the announcement on the Monday prior; in recent years they have been announcing the prize during the big 'Nobel week', when most of the other prizes are announced -- which, this year, is next week.)
This year saw Sara Danius take over as permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy from Peter Englund -- meaning she's in charge of the Nobel proceedings at the prize-deciding body (and will also be the one announcing the winner to the world) -- albeit only at the end of spring, well into the decision-making process. So far things have been fairly quiet during her tenure -- but then the Academy has spent most of it on their summer vacation. The real arguing and deciding has presumably only started in recent days ..... As to gossip and rumors, it's been astonishingly quiet (so far) this year.
I've been finding it a bit hard to get into the Nobel spirit of things this year, since there's not really much to add to my discussions from previous years: there really aren't (m)any names that haven't previously -- often long -- been in the mix.
Internationally, Krasznahorkai Lázsló has been gaining traction (locally too: they just reviewed his Satantango in the Göteborgs-Posten a few days ago ...), but I think it might be a few more years before he's really in the thick of things (having Hungary as the thematic focus at the just-concluded Göteborg Book Fair probably doesn't help either, not for this year). Elena Ferrante is obviously sizzling hot in the US but don't forget that she has made a much more limited European impression -- including, apparently, not even yet being translated into Swedish (not a precondition to win the prize, of course, but it doesn't hurt) -- though at least she's coming: Elena Ferrante ges ut på svenska 2016 as Dagens Nyheter reports; indeed, for what it's worth (again: not that much) the Swedish Academy's Nobel library only has four of her books in its holdings (and only one is checked out ...) (Krasznahorkai: twenty-two).
Betting at Ladbrokes pretty much just continued where last year left off, with most of the same names at similar odds. As I've often noted, the betting list is unlikely to get the favorite right, but chances are pretty good the eventual winner is on the list, at pretty decent odds. And, once again we have Murakami and Ngũgĩ right up there, as well as still-less-well-known in the US/UK Svetlana Alexievich and Jon Fosse; Philip Roth is among the few whose odds have edged slightly higher over the summer -- one last gasp for the retiree ? Poets Adonis and Ko Un figure, as always. (And, yes, Bob Dylan, at a ridiculous 33/1.)
Missing from the Ladbrokes list are a few authors I've mentioned previously as plausible candidate -- Iranians Mahmoud Dowlatabadi and Shahrnush Parsipur, for example, or any number of Arabic-writing authors (Ibrahim Al-Koni ?). Yes, overall it's all pretty much the usual suspects once again.
Discussion has been pretty active at The Fictional Woods and the World Literature Forum -- all over the place, but covering most of the possible or potential contenders too, so certainly worth checking out and keeping up with.
I'll try to offer more speculation as announcement-day approaches -- and maybe there will be some hot gossip leaking out of Stockholm .....
This year saw Sara Danius take over as permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy from Peter Englund -- meaning she's in charge of the Nobel proceedings at the prize-deciding body (and will also be the one announcing the winner to the world) -- albeit only at the end of spring, well into the decision-making process. So far things have been fairly quiet during her tenure -- but then the Academy has spent most of it on their summer vacation. The real arguing and deciding has presumably only started in recent days ..... As to gossip and rumors, it's been astonishingly quiet (so far) this year.
I've been finding it a bit hard to get into the Nobel spirit of things this year, since there's not really much to add to my discussions from previous years: there really aren't (m)any names that haven't previously -- often long -- been in the mix.
Internationally, Krasznahorkai Lázsló has been gaining traction (locally too: they just reviewed his Satantango in the Göteborgs-Posten a few days ago ...), but I think it might be a few more years before he's really in the thick of things (having Hungary as the thematic focus at the just-concluded Göteborg Book Fair probably doesn't help either, not for this year). Elena Ferrante is obviously sizzling hot in the US but don't forget that she has made a much more limited European impression -- including, apparently, not even yet being translated into Swedish (not a precondition to win the prize, of course, but it doesn't hurt) -- though at least she's coming: Elena Ferrante ges ut på svenska 2016 as Dagens Nyheter reports; indeed, for what it's worth (again: not that much) the Swedish Academy's Nobel library only has four of her books in its holdings (and only one is checked out ...) (Krasznahorkai: twenty-two).
Betting at Ladbrokes pretty much just continued where last year left off, with most of the same names at similar odds. As I've often noted, the betting list is unlikely to get the favorite right, but chances are pretty good the eventual winner is on the list, at pretty decent odds. And, once again we have Murakami and Ngũgĩ right up there, as well as still-less-well-known in the US/UK Svetlana Alexievich and Jon Fosse; Philip Roth is among the few whose odds have edged slightly higher over the summer -- one last gasp for the retiree ? Poets Adonis and Ko Un figure, as always. (And, yes, Bob Dylan, at a ridiculous 33/1.)
Missing from the Ladbrokes list are a few authors I've mentioned previously as plausible candidate -- Iranians Mahmoud Dowlatabadi and Shahrnush Parsipur, for example, or any number of Arabic-writing authors (Ibrahim Al-Koni ?). Yes, overall it's all pretty much the usual suspects once again.
Discussion has been pretty active at The Fictional Woods and the World Literature Forum -- all over the place, but covering most of the possible or potential contenders too, so certainly worth checking out and keeping up with.
I'll try to offer more speculation as announcement-day approaches -- and maybe there will be some hot gossip leaking out of Stockholm .....