Last year, long before this time of summer, there was already a flurry of betting opportunities on the Nobel Prize in Literature; see, for example, my 1 July (!) discussion from last year.
True, most of this was a lot of empty noise: most of these betting shops closed down their Nobel betting long before the prize was awarded (as Ladbrokes remains, basically, the only Nobel game in town (or online, or anywhere)).
But, surprisingly, this year no one has set any odds yet.
(Ladbrokes traditionally only enters the game relatively late -- it'll be a few more weeks until they set and post their odds; don't worry, I'll let you know when they do.)
However, the natives and the literati are apparently getting restless, and two of the most active discussion fora have opened up discussion threads -- which have quickly attracted a lot of activity:
What do we know so far ?
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded on a Thursday in October -- but they only announce which one on the Monday before. With the earliest other Nobel announcement this year due 8 October, it is very likely the announcement will be on 11 October (the latest since 2005) -- though there's an outside chance they'll take advantage of having the stage and attention all to themselves and announce on the 4th.
As head Nobel-man Peter Englund revealed at his weblog earlier this year, the Swedish Academy received 288 valid nominations for this year's prize: 210 names, of which, 46 are first time nominees (possibly much less than usual, as the official site claims: "There are usually about 350 proposals each year"). Very few of these names are known -- I'll try and collect the handful that have been made public (usually by overeager national literary organizations of countries whose authors have no chance of getting the prize) and list them sometime in the next weeks (even as the Swedish Academy is now already working with a shortlist of about five names ...).
That's pretty much all we know, so far. Which, of course, won't stop us -- and me, in particular -- from guessing. It gets more fun once the first odds are up, which gives everyone more names to play with -- and I refer you also to what I think are the useful lessons learnt that I posted in last year's Nobel Prize 2011: Prediction post-mortem. (Among them -- and I hope this catches on --: one name not to play with, ever: Bob Dylan. Can we all agree just to leave him out of it ?)
As the post-mortem also notes, those Ladbrokes odds, when they come out, are worth playing close attention to. Tomas Tranströmer barely registered in any of the speculation last year, but he started out as the second favorite as far the Ladbrokes odds went .....
Stay tuned: obviously, I'll be milking this for all it's worth, for the next two months.
However, the natives and the literati are apparently getting restless, and two of the most active discussion fora have opened up discussion threads -- which have quickly attracted a lot of activity:
- The World Literature Forum now offers Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 Speculation
- the Fictional Woods has Nobel Prize 2012; wild speculations
What do we know so far ?
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded on a Thursday in October -- but they only announce which one on the Monday before. With the earliest other Nobel announcement this year due 8 October, it is very likely the announcement will be on 11 October (the latest since 2005) -- though there's an outside chance they'll take advantage of having the stage and attention all to themselves and announce on the 4th.
As head Nobel-man Peter Englund revealed at his weblog earlier this year, the Swedish Academy received 288 valid nominations for this year's prize: 210 names, of which, 46 are first time nominees (possibly much less than usual, as the official site claims: "There are usually about 350 proposals each year"). Very few of these names are known -- I'll try and collect the handful that have been made public (usually by overeager national literary organizations of countries whose authors have no chance of getting the prize) and list them sometime in the next weeks (even as the Swedish Academy is now already working with a shortlist of about five names ...).
That's pretty much all we know, so far. Which, of course, won't stop us -- and me, in particular -- from guessing. It gets more fun once the first odds are up, which gives everyone more names to play with -- and I refer you also to what I think are the useful lessons learnt that I posted in last year's Nobel Prize 2011: Prediction post-mortem. (Among them -- and I hope this catches on --: one name not to play with, ever: Bob Dylan. Can we all agree just to leave him out of it ?)
As the post-mortem also notes, those Ladbrokes odds, when they come out, are worth playing close attention to. Tomas Tranströmer barely registered in any of the speculation last year, but he started out as the second favorite as far the Ladbrokes odds went .....
Stay tuned: obviously, I'll be milking this for all it's worth, for the next two months.