Who will get the Nobel Prize in Literature?

The Nobel Prizes are being announced this week, and expectations are that the prize for literature will be announced tomorrow, Oct. 9.

Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, caused a stir when he said in an interview that "the U.S. is too isolated, too insular" to get the Nobel in Literature. "They don't translate enough, and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining." He also said, "You can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world, not the United States."

Nevertheless, Philip Roth is considered to be among those in the final running for the prize. According to the Guardian, the British wagering house Ladbrokes has Italian critic Claudio Magris and Syrian poet Adonis as the two frontrunners.

We'll know tomorrow, most likely. But in the meantime -- who would you like to see get the Nobel Prize in Literature?

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photos: Nobel laureates in Literature: Doris Lessing (2007), Orhan Pamuk (2006) and Harold Pinter (2005). Credit: U. Montan

Comments

[sazan kryeziu]

I think this year's Nobel Prize for Literature should go to the albanian writer Ismail Kadare. I have read almost all the other writers's works who many consider to be among those in the final running for the Prize, but none of them be it Roth, Pynchon, Oz, Oates, DeLillo, Adonis, Magris etc. cannot be compared to the genius of Ismail Kadare. If we talk about true imaginative genius then we can say that Ismail Kadare is deservedly the best of them. His craft of representing the darkest times of his own people under the dictatorship of one of the cruelest regimes in Europe - thorughout his novels by using so artfully the figure of metaphor, which is the special mark of genius in everyone of us, makes Kadare one of the greatest contemporary writers. Here's a list of his major works which I would reccomend you for a reading list:
"The General of the Dead Army","Chronicle in Stone", "The Three-Arched Bridge."The Palace of Dreams", "Broken April", "The Siege" and many more.

[Jake]

As I said here:http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/kundera-horace-engdahl-and-the-nobel-prize amid derogatory comments on Engdahl, I'd say Umberto Eco and Philip Roth most deserve it. Eco doesn't seem to be mentioned much, and I wonder if he's a) becoming forgotten or b) isn't considered sufficiently literary.

(On a side note, the blog's refusal to let me post hyperlinks is irritating.)

[Bekim]

Here is a great thing on who is Ismail Kadare:
www.ismailkadaretruth.blogspot.com
He plays a role of ex disident, but this blog reveals he was actually a friend of dictator Hoxha and his spy.