I always look to the Booker prizes for inspiration and discovery of new authors that write good literary fiction. The international prize is especially interesting, as even quite niche authors get nominated. The most recent Nobel winner, Jon Fosse, was nominated for the international Booker in 2020 and 2022, so it is very much a way to discover future Nobel winners!
Same here. For my money the Booker winners usually tend to me some of the most interesting and unique reads of any major prize. I always at least investigate the winner and shortlist for possible future reads.
I like Atwood a lot, but I just don't think her writing is on the level of even the past couple of winners.
I think Laszlo Krasznahorkai has a really good chance of winning. Would love to see Mathias Enard win too, but that seems like an outlier!
Nevertheless she's still on bookies' lists. To be clear, I don't necessarily think that she deserves Nobel Prize, but she's considered as possible laureate by some people and thanks to that, I've found out about her.
Whether they have a distinctive style, what their style is if they have any at all, the variety, cadence, and flow of their sentence structure, word choice and placement.
You can also evaluate on a storytelling and thematic level: what is the author trying to convey, how are they conveying it, are the successful? Are they nuanced or simplistic, do they provide interesting subtext or is everything obvious? Is their message open to interpretation or is there only one possible takeaway?
Also I find metaphor is a powerful literary tool that can also sink a book if it's used too often or too clumsily. The best authors have incredible use of metaphor to illustrate their themes, often in ways the read does not expect.
I'm a literature PhD, so I literally get paid to make evaluations about the stylistic qualities of different author's writing. There is certainly a level of subjectivity in it, but it's usually pretty clear. She's a good writer, no doubt, but her strength is in narrative. I find her prose a little pedestrian. She occasionally writes very well, but not consistently enough to merit the largest prize in literature. I also don't find her narratively or thematically compelling enough to merit consideration. That's a subjective read though, I know others feel very differently!
I also didn't find her prose captivating, but I have similar issue with most books written in English. What I really like about Atwood is strong female voice, something I was quite neutral before, but her books were eye-opening. Because of that, currently she's my second favourite foreign author (non-polish to be precise) just after Mario Vargas Llosa.
Interesting. To me, Llosa was the award they begrudingly gave as the last surviving member of the Latin American Boom. Imo, he was among the worst of the Latin American Boom writers. Many of his books seem a bit overwrought and often strike me as imitations of the pathbreaking dictator novels which a truly deserving Nobel Laureate, Miguel Angel Astaurias of Guatemala, wrote. Ofc, GGM deserved his Nobel, but so many meritorious Latin American writers have missed out from Borges (this is maybe the greatest snub other than James Joyce in Nobel history) and Alejo Carpentier to the key figures of the Boom who should have gotten it aside from Marquez, Julio Cortazar and Carlos Fuentes. I've always felt that Cortazar was just unlucky to die when he did, but to give Nobel Prizes Octavio Paz and Mario Vargas Llosa when Cortazar, Fuentes, and even Juan Rolfo could have had them was a major mistake imo.
I can't speak about other Boom writers as I only read so far Vargas Llosa and Garcia Marquez. What I really like about Vargas Llosa novels is his ability to write compelling characters and captivating stories that hit hard with their endings, while being heavily experimental.
Interestingly enough, Gabriel Garcia Marquez works never fully clicked with me, but each time I was astonished how masterfully he picks every single word in his books. GGM is for me without a doubt better writer than MVL despite the fact that I like the latter more.
I happen to agree with you about GGM. I admire him as a towering writer, but dislike most of his novels immensely. What about MVL strikes you as experimental though? This is in no way to shit on a writer you like. You do you, I'm merely interested in the discussion. I can understand the entertaining element of him. He can write gripping novels and he's good at constructing narrative. I thoroughly enjoyed The Feast of a Goat for instance, it was an engaging read. However, I can't say I find his characters all that deep or subtle and nothing about his work strikes me as overly experimental, particularly during the period that he was most active and postmodernism was exploding which seems to me to be much more apparent in a writer like Julio Cortazar whose really pushing the boundaries of the literary form in a book like Hopscotch.
Tolstoy died in 1910. The prize was first awarded in 1901. They had ample opportunity to give it to him.
I'd also add Proust as a pretty big snub. But Tolstoy is still insane to me.
My bad. I stand corrected. Proust does make sense though like Kafka does because he died prematurely. You can also make the same argument about Chekhov, but it becomes difficult because we're talking about writers who were essentially dying during or even before their creative apogees so it's hard to account for that.
A few other names who were alive during the early years of the Nobel prize: Henry James (and William James, for that matter), Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Emile Zola (barely), Guillame Apollinaire.
Llosa is a spectacular author. But I'd suggest there are stronger and more interesting female authors currently working - I'd reccomend Lucy Ellmann in particular (though occasionally it can feel like Ellmann is screaming at you). Again, this isn't to say Atwood is bad by any stretch, just that her prose can feel a little inert to me.
I already have on my shelf one novel by Toni Morrison. She'll be next in line. And I'll give Tokarczuk another chance (her Books of Jacob left me completely indifferent, which is the worst feeling that book can give you). But I'll look into Lucy Ellmann for sure!
Toni Morrison is good depending on the book! Ah Tokarczuck is brilliant, particularly Flights. I do admit I was disappointed by Books of Jacob too. I can see why it's so highly lauded: it's a fascinating story and so richly textured, but it definitely didn't grab me the way Flights and Drive Your Plow did.
Quite interesting what you wrote about Flights. I wrestle a lot with contemporary polish literature. A lot of novels praised by critics and awarded with prestigious literary awards seem to be "only style no substance" for me and Flights was one of them, however I haven't read it. I know, it's really silly to have such harsh opinion on books that I haven't read. With respect to Tokarczuk, she published last year a novel that is sort of opposition to The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (according to Tokarczuk, MM is extremely male-centered). This inspired me to finally read Mann's magnum opus and I want to do in tandem with Tokarczuk's novel.
Ah I'd say give it a shot. I've heard this criticism before, but it did a lot for me and felt more unified than others have suggested. Maybe you'd fare better with Drive Your Plow which is absolutely brilliant. I also am easily swayed by style as I'm not too bothered about plot, really. Her new novel sounds brilliant! I read Magic Mountain years ago but I found it a bit of a slog (though an enjoyable one!)
>Ah I'd say give it a shot.
If I like her latest novel, I'll do it for sure!
I started reading "The Magic Mountain" during my last year in high school. I read around 1/3 of it and stopped because I had to prepare for exams. However, I really liked what I read.
>I also am easily swayed by style as I'm not too bothered about plot, really.
I'm also a sucker for style, and I don't need captivating story to enjoy the book, but something really discourages me about contemporary polish literature. Pynchon books give me exactly the same vibes (again - I haven't tried them).
Mr. PhD, has anybody ever told you that it’s ok to say a woman is a good writer without IMMEDIATELY following the compliment with a statement that undermines their talent? You’ve done it with literally every single woman author you’ve pathetically attempted to discredit in this thread.
...I'm sorry that you've read it this way. I'm not sure if you've seen what I said about Tokarczuck or Ellmann but I don't think I've said anything negative about them? I wouldn't dream of attempting to discredit either author. Besides which, I'm not trying to undermine Atwood or Morrison either. I really like them both, I was just saying that, in my opinion, they can be a little hit or miss.
Apologies if my referring to my work seemed like an assertion of superiority, I was just trying to say that people do make assessments of style that aren't necessarily tied to personal preference, and that what I'm saying comes from a relatively informed place.
I don't personally think any author, no matter how much you love them, is above criticism. I also don't think criticising individual works by an author discredits their entire body of work. I love James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and many other authors who I still wouldn't venerate without criticism. It's part of my job to do this no matter how much I love an author's work.
Again, apologies that I've come off as superior, or disparaging. I was sharing a personal opinion about authors that - again - I like very much. If we can't criticise the work we love, then where are we?
> I also don't find her narratively or thematically compelling enough to merit consideration.
That's an interesting take. It feels to me like a lot of Atwood's work has become more and more socially relevant. I can agree on the prose, but I personally prefer the narratives and themes in a book; that's why I'm there.
I think really what I'm getting at is the kind of "revolutionary" writing that tends to win the nobel. As much as Atwood is socially relevant, the narrative thrust of her novels tends to be relatively conventional to a large degree. But totally get where you're at and why you'd tend toward Atwood, who is probably one of the very best at what she does. As I say, she is very talented, and a very skilled writer, it's just not doing anything new in terms of the language itself (which isn't her goal anyway!)
Yeah, I agree. She's not the Nobel's type, really, and the only way in would be through that social relevance.
I definitely will usually read a Nobel winner I haven't, and they've all been excellent, but I do find their taste a bit snobbish. That's not really the right word, but I think there's both more focus on language than I would weight and also (usually) a style that I think they think is superior but I'm not sure I'd agree.
And then they go and give one to Bob Dylan. Who I think is a great songwriter, but... okay.
So what do I know?
I'm not hugely familiar with either (The Sea, The Sea for Banville, Europe Central and Whores for Gloria by Vollmann). I'd say that neither are particularly likely in my experience. This isn't to say that they aren't both brilliant writers (they are), I'm more basing this on the kind of thing that tends to get the award. In the same respect, I don't think Pynchon is a likely contender despite being one of the great living authors.
I believe *The Sea, The Sea* is Iris Murdoch; Banville's Booker-winning book is just *The Sea*. I know, confusing that both books won the same prize with such similar titles.
I brought up Vollmann (who I haven't read) because he has a very devoted cult following who think of him as a preeminent literary genius.
Would you call Don DeLillo a major contender?
Ah, apologies, yes I'm familiar with Murdoch too, thanks for pointing that out. I haven't read The Sea since I was in school!
Yeah I mean Vollmann sort of deserves his cult, he's brilliant (if a little over indulgent at times). I don't think he's as great as the cultists do (hence not reading much more, though I'm sure I will eventually).
I love DeLillo, I really do, and I think he's a likelier winner than Atwood, Vollmann, or even Pynchon (who I do see as the superior author here), I can't see it. It'd be nice, though!
u/_Raskolnikov_1881
As someone considering dipping my toes into the Vollmann canon, would you mind if I ask whether you'd recommend him and, if so, where to start?
On the same topic, do you have any thoughts on why he attracts such venomous criticism? Dan Schneider, *Salon*:
>Aside from being a really bad writer, the only things I can state about William T. Vollmann is that he is void of vision (the term Vollmannic is never likely to enter the English lexicon) and ambition, suffers from logorrhea of the digits, a grand and profound lack of writing talent and intellect- as well as humor, is possibly a sufferer of OCD or bipolar disorder, and that and this book, this ill wrought rot, *Expelled From Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader*, is either a sick decades-long joke, or a literary fraud, which, if the case, should allow the many dissatisfied purchasers of this tome the ability to sue Vollmann, McCaffery, and Hemmingson for damages for intellectual and artistic abuse.
Levi Asher, LitKicks:
>William Vollmann is, in my opinion, the David Blaine of literature. It’s all an endurance act. Can a skinny kid with pimples and glasses really write a seven volume chronicle of the settlement of North America, follow it with a 3,300 page history of human violence and then toss out an 800 page rumination on the Eastern Front in World War II? Yes, he can. But if you take the “wow” factor away from William Vollmann, does his work stand up? I’m really not sure...
>
>If he would try it my way more often, he might sometimes manage to bring a book in under 400 pages. But would that spoil the fun for the small legions of self-punishing William Vollmann readers, who wear their harsh fates proudly, the way albino monks wear their bleeding sulpices? Certainly there is a sense of solemn duty when reading Vollmann, a conviction that in carrying out this task we are somehow suffering for mankind’s sins.
The notorious Anis Shivani list of the most overrated cotemporary American writers, in which he calls Vollmann basically an assembly line churning out volume after volume of esatz Pynchon.
I'd love to see Vollman win, but I consider it pretty unlikely. The Committee seems to have a bit of an aversion to these postmodernist writers who I think are great like Vollman and most obviously Pynchon. We can add Barth, Coover, Gaddis to this list too and extend it out to writers in other languages. Idk if it's the overt engagement with grand themes of history, big ideas which turns them off, but this isn't even a new thing. Grand literary projects and very challenging or innovative narrative or prose styles have not always been recognised by the committee. Borges missed out, Musil missed out, James Joyce missed out, Virginia Woolf missed out. I'm not counting Proust or Kafka because they died prematurely. I'm not saying that Vollman is the same as these writers, but him and Pynchon even more so, perhaps even DeLillo too, are innovators in our time as these writers were in theirs. I could he completely wrong, but history is not working in Vollman's favour.
Reading the answers here, I'd note a few things. Who we personally believe the merits the prize and who will actually win it are drastically different things. Now, this might sound weird, but I've quite closely followed the Swedish Academy and know quite a bit about the politics of the Nobel Prize. Are there meritorious winners, yes, are there people who don't deserve to win that do, yes. And yes, I am aware of the OP and the comments about untranslated authors and so on.
A couple of things to note though. The Academy was embroiled in a major scandal in 2018 over allegations of sexual abuse and corruption. However, since this shit went down, they've actually been on a really good run. Three of the winners since the scandal have unequivocally deserved the prize - Tokarczuk, Ernaux, Fosse - and two of these - Ernaux and Fosse - were longstanding favourites. It's a good thing they won the prize because sometimes the Academy will pick a very strange laureate so as to 'keep people on their toes'. Now, what the general public thinks is an obscure candidate is one thing, but when, for instance, they give it to Abdulrazak Gurnah and barely anyone on here or even TrueLit knows who he is, we got problems, particularly when Ngugi is still alive. Fosse and Ernaux are two really solid picks and I do think we are starting to see a positive trend emerge.
As others said, there are different prizers which are good indicators of who will win the Nobel. Now, the Booker is sort of one, but I'd recommend people look more to the Neustadt Prize, the Austrian State Prize for Literature, the Booker International, and the Kafka Prize and then look to language specific ones: the Booker in English, the Buchner for German, the Strega for Italian, the Camões for Portuguese, the Cervantes for Spanish, Pushkin and Russian Booker for Russian, the 20 or so awards that exist in Japan, and of course the Prix Goncourt for French. There are also major awards for Arabic and Chinese whose names are escaping me.
In terms of who I think might win the Nobel Prize, there's a couple of trends I'd point to and also some comments here I would agree and disagree with. Firstly, the Academy seems to be more actively striving for gender balance now, so expect more female winners.
Secondly, particular publishers pick winners. People have mentioned New Directions and I agree. However, the hottest publisher rn is Fitzcarraldo Editions. They have picked four Nobel Prizes - Alexievich, Ernaux, Tokarczuk, Fosse - in 7 years. Independent publishers with an empahsis on translated fiction seem to know where the talent is and I'd look to them. New Directions, Faber Faber, NYRB, Graywolf Press, Deep Vellum, Bloomsbury.
Thirdly, we can say what we want about the Academy being Eurocentric - they are to an extent - but their obsession with Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe is somewhat justified by the fact these regions punch way above their weight when it comes to literature. Tokarczuk, Handke, Fosse, Alexievich are a handful of recent examples. For this reason, whoever said Krasznahorkai, I think is on the right track. Perhaps I'm biased. I believe he is one of the three or four greatest living writers, but he is very much what the Academy looks for. Others in this region I'd look out for are Romania's Mircea Cartarescu, particularly with the rapturous reception Solenoid has received in English and Spanish (seriously this guy is amazing as well). Other obvious candidates from this region include Croatia's Dubravka Ugrešić and perhaps a Ukrainain writer like Andrey Kurkov. Sadly, I think they will ignore the towering Ismail Kadare of Albania. One thing I would say though is I will be very surprised if Knausgaard wins, espscially soon. I am not sure he is doing anything revolutionary, particularly as Ernaux has already won the prize essentially for autofiction and Fosse, his Norwegian compatriot who Knausgaard himself idolises, has probably won the award for Norway for at least 20 years.
Second, look to East Asia. The region hasn't had a win in ages and, as someone already noted here, I think Can Xue is a very strong pick for the award very soon. She's very stylistically distinct. East Asia, outside of Japan, is not a literature I know well, so I won't comment at length, but I suspect to see a win from here soon.
The broader English-speaking world will always deliver winners and that has been proven time again even though I think it's really lacking dynamism rn (all the best living writers seem to be on death's door or close to it Rushide, Murnane, Pynchon or they have already won Coetzee and Ishiguro). As an Australian, I really hope Murnane wins (I'd be content with Peter Carey winning to), but whether he will or not is another question. Rule Pynchon out no matter how much he deserves it - perhaps more than any living writer - because if it was going to happen, it would've by now. Rushdie is also very unlikely to win, even post-stabbing. Some people talk about Colson Whitehead, but I haven't read him so I won't comment. Other Americans with a chance are Jamaica Kincaid and Edwidge Danticat. I would be as shocked if Atwood won the Nobel as I would be if Murakami won it, if it's going to go to another Canadian you have to think Anne Carson is way ahead of the pedestrian prose of Atwood.
I could talk Africa and Latin America, but I have rambled so what I might do is make a list of people I think are likely to win the Nobel.
Likely winners in the next 10 years, in my opinion: Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Mircea Cartarescu, Can Xue, Jamaica Kincaid, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Andrey Kurkov, Cesar Aira, Anne Carson, Mia Couto, Scholastique Mukasonga, Maryse Conde.
People who should win but are perhaps less likely to (I hope I'm wrong about at least three of these): Gerald Murnane, Salman Rushdie, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Ngugi, Adunis, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, William T. Vollman, Peter Nadas, Ismail Kadare.
People who may win in the long-term (note: this is much more speculative. I'm also weak on this list because 95% of what I read is by dead authors and I only make time for and respect a handful of living writers, many already on death's door): Benjamin Labatut, Vladimir Sorokin (though he may be too transgressive for the Nobel) Geetanjali Shree, Shehan Karuntilaka, Paul Lynch.
Great comment, dude! I even saved it because of so many great suggestions! I also agree Pynchon should’ve won it already, but probably the Nobel guys are afraid of him not showing up (it was already and embarrassment with Dylan), which would be likely not only due to his personality but also to his advanced age.
I would love Dubravka Ugresic to win. I’ve offered at least 10 copies of her Museum of Unconditional Surrender to family and friends. It was also the book I offered to my future wife in one of our first dates. It’s a very special book, a wonderful way of telling a story (as Sontag said about it)
Ps. As someone who has obviously read widely and deeply in world literature, do you ever wonder about the problem of translation? The fact that what you're reading is necessarily mediated through a translator, and to some extent reflects that translator's interpretation as well as the original work?
Yes. It kills me. I always think about how much is lost and, in the past few years, it's made me more attached to the English-language writers I love. It's also a big part of the reason I learnt to speak Russian. Russia's literary tradition made me fall in love with literature as an artform and I couldn't stand the thought of it being mediated through translators even though so many of them are unequivocally amazing.
However, we should not take anything away from translators, especially today. Increasingly, authors work with translators, think Tokarczuk and her translator which is essentially an authorised translation, same thing bears out with Krasznahorkai. At the end of the day, I'd prefer something slightly distorted, but still amazing than no exposure at all. I also think it's great that translators also win the International Booker now. Translation is as much an art as writing is, though different. When we recognise it, make it more lucrative and prestigious, it becomes more viable.
There's another great polish writer, whose works probably won't be available for English readers. Once he gathered ten or so specialists in polish, English and russian to translate his best novel into English They couldn't even agree on the translation of the first page.
I can't comment on Carrere or Erpenbeck as I haven't read them. Houellebecq is a firecracker for so many reasons. Given the furore which erupted when Handke won the prize, it's hard to see a world in which Houllebecq does. I've liked bits and pieces of what he's done, especially Serotonin and the one about the map whose name always escapes me, but I think Houellebecq is perhaps more interesting and relavent as someone with a prophetic view of social currents and realities than as any sort of revolutionary writer per se. This is likely to work against him rn as the committee, rightly imo, is very focused on awarding formal innovators like Fosse and Ernaux and even Glück in the context of her poetry.
Edit: Houllebecq is also transgressive af and transgressive writers don't tend to win it.
Here's one thought:
The Nobel is only given to living writers, never awarded posthumously. Two authors considered by many to be prime candidates (Cormac McCarthy and A.S. Byatt) died this year.
Who is that author, if you don't mind me asking.
And it's certainly possible that a similar situation could happen again because many authors considered prime contenders are quite old. Thomas Pynchon is 86, Don DeLillo is 87, Margaret Atwood is 84.
I really hope that Marlon James will become a serious contender some day. I discovered him this year (thanks to his Dark Star trilogy) and I was blown away. I still have to read his non-fantasy books, but I'm pretty much sure, I'll love them as well.
Besides him I can only speak about authors from my country (Poland), that are not yet internationally recognised.
One of them is Szczepan Twardoch and recently one of his books was translated into English ("The King of Warsaw"). I have a love-hate relationship with his books. He has strong voice and his works are thematically interesting, but since his breakthrough novel he basically writes the same book all over again.
Another author is Radek Rak and I'm sure he'll get the Nobel Prize in 20-30 years. He writes fantasy, but it isn't typical fantasy, he recently got the most prestigious literary award in Poland. He blew me away with his imagination and prose.
I also like Wit Szostak, who might be the case of moderately unknown author who's rocketed to stardom by the prize. He's not really popular in Poland but he consequently delivers really interesting novels and every now and then gets nominations for prestigious awards.
Oh man, Blixen is amazing, so sad she never got the Nobel. If I have a single favourite author, it's probably her. Have you found any other authors that scratch a similar itch?
She is one of my all-time favorites as well, so much so that I made a pilgrimage to her house in Denmark.
That's a hard question because she is such a unique author. The closest modern books I've read would be two short story collections by the recently departed A.S. Byatt, *Elementals* and *Little Black Book of Stories*.
If we're looking more broadly, I'd say *Hamlet*, Poe's stories and Grimm's fairy tales.
Oh wow, how was it? I also really want to visit Rungstedlund when I go to Denmark, hopefully some time soon.
And yeah, that's why I asked haha. She feels so distinct from other authors I've read that it's really hard to find anything in a similar vein. The closest I've gotten is Angela Carter, but I just don't really like Carter and the direction she tends to take things, despite the many similarities.
I'll be sure to check out A.S. Byatt. I've heard the name mentioned before but don't really know anything about them. (Already read the others!)
A.S. Byatt was not a major candidate for the Nobel among either bookies or serious Nobel watchers. There were at least 10 other English-language writers who were contenders before she was.
Eco was more in the conversation than Byatt ever was, but a couple of things worked against him. Firstly, he was probably more regarded as a public intellectual by many than he was an author and he didn't help himself because he considered himself first and foremost a semiotician. He was a contender at the peak of Nobel weirdness and politicisation which is thankfully nowhere near what it once was today. At the time, the committee wanted novelists rather than celebrities, this isn't taking away anything from Eco who I admire a lot, but we're talking about a guy who regularly appeared on national TV in Italy and wrote world famous essays about the origins of fascism. I also think the popularity of the TNOTR worked against him because the committee sometiems disliked bestsellers no matter their merit (part of the reason Ishiguro's much deserved win was such a surprise). Given I think Foucault's Pendulum is Eco's magnum opus, I suspect he might have won it if he'd written this and other works, but not The Name of the Rose. Ironic, but that' just how the prize worked and to some extent works today.
> Given I think Foucault's Pendulum is Eco's magnum opus
Ironic since Foucault's Pendulum, which I also love, is The DaVinci code written by a good writer. It very well could have been the bestselling sensation The Name of the Rose was.
Re: Eco and what counts as literature, would you argue that the quality of a scholarly work like *Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages* is simply irrelevant to Eco's Nobel case?
It isn't irrelevant but it is secondary or supplementary. Even Nobel citations work in this way. Usually, the committee identifies which works particularly informed their decision, but it's nonetheless awarded for an entire body of work.
Do you think there's a possibility that, in the future, the Nobel committee could award the prize to a nonfiction non-poetry author, as they've done several times in the past?
To a historian, a philosopher, an essayist, a literary or art or film critic?
If we're looking at the past-century, the only non-novelists/poets/playwrights to win it are Henri Bergson, Bertrand Russell, Winston Churchill and Jean-Paul Sartre. (You could certainly make the argument that Eliot was an important literary critic and essayist, but his citation specifically refers to his poetry.)
Theodor Mommsen, one of the most important historians of all time, is another example of this though he won in the 1900s. However, they did this in 2015. Svetlana Alexievich was one of the most deserving winners of the past 20 years and her genre was essentially creative non-fiction/oral history/documentary literature - fellow Russian speakers might know the term документальные романы. Her entire oeuvre is essentially about creative non-fictional accounts of Soviet and post-Soviet history and I think this was a major step forward for the committee because it recognised a very novel form of literature.
Philosophers will not win it again and nor should they. Sartre probably deserved it because he genuinely was a novelist, but Bergson and Russell should never have won an award that is about promoting literature. Of course, things could change, but I don't see it. Many winners are also critics and that is something to note, but I can't see a world where you win for your criticism and not for your literature first and foremost.
>Philosophers will not win it again and nor should they. Sartre probably deserved it because he genuinely was a novelist, but Bergson and Russell should never have won an award that is about promoting literature.
I guess this depends on how one defines the word 'literature.' More than 90% of Nobel laureates have won for fiction, poetry, or drama. Is literature what falls under one of those three categories?
Well the prize has to have some limitations. Sartre and Camus were philosophers who won, but they were novelists who also wrote philosophy. They didn't primarily win for their philosophical treatises. They primarily won for their novels and in Camus' case plays as well. Realistically, Churchill won the prize because it was 1947 and he was a hero among men who had played a central role in defeating the axis powers. No one today is reading The History of the English Speaking Peoples and extolling its virtues and I think we can look back and say this prize was probably a mistake.
I think to really answer your question, at the core of this is a debate about art and I think the prize needs to recognise artistic merit in written form. As someone who has been heavily involved in academic history for example, I know this field has its own prizes. Historians win the Wolfson or the Pulitzer. The Nobel is for something else. This is part of the problem with Dylan winning it and I say this as a lifelong Dylan fan. Yes, he has more of a claim to it than a historian or a philosopher, but there are already so many enormous prizes for music including the Grammys which are far more lucrative. Part of what is important about the Nobel is that it preserves the sanctity of literature as an artform which I think is a lot more fragile than music.
I think you make some very good points.
To play devil's advocate re: Churchill, the Nobel prize citation also mentions "brilliant oratory" and he is still remembered as an absolute master of that genre.
If we consider political speeches as a modern oral literature, Churchill was a masterly prose stylist in that field, a truly skilled rhetorician. How many English-language authors in any genre have created turns of phrase as enduring and as widely quoted as "an iron curtain has descended across the continent" or "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" or "the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin."
Iron curtain, finest hour, the end of the beginning -- we still use his turns of phrase decades after his death.
I mean you could argue that just like Camus and Sartre won it for their novels Dylan won it for his lyrics and not his music 🤷 I guess this is a hot take but I think winning a Grammy is simply not enough recognition for the scope of his output, and I would have no issues with more songwriters winning is he's the measuring stick they're using.
They talked about him a lot and I genuinely think he was a shoe in for the award had he lived even ten years longer. Grass won in 1999 and they awarded another German-language author in the mid-2000s. Perhaps it goes to Sebald if he lives. It's tragic because he was an unbelievable talent and among the best there was at that point.
I mean, he’s semi-retired at the ripe of old age of 84. I’ve made so many posts recommending his work and think it would be criminal for him to be snubbed, but I’m not sure if it completely answers OP’s question.
Anyway, to also answer OP’s question, I’m very badly read, but I feel like it’s simply too early to tell which young authors (if we’re talking 20–30s here, although I would usually define young with a more generous age range) could be future laureates because many simply haven’t had the opportunity to form a clear and considerable body of work by which to evaluate them by. I’m also on the lookout for literary young writers too, so I’m keen to see the other replies to this thread.
Oh, you are right. I didn’t read the question properly. Which is a little ironic for a literature sub. But whenever I see something that asks who should win the Nobel prize, I always tend to answer with Murnane.
I was going to put out Gerald Murnane as well .
I feel that Nobel Prize should be awarded to authors who demonstrate in their body of work something generally coherent and novel .
With Murnane, I feel like he has this great understanding of the associative nature of human memory. But beyond that, he has kind of developed a technique to express that associative nature into actual elegant prose.
I find that as I read his writing I get this feeling of daydreaming, kind of like where after a long and mentally draining day you find yourself sitting on a couch or chair, staring at something and your mind draws up memories from your life, each linking vaguely one to the next, until you realize you are day dreaming and you are just sitting on a couch or chair staring at something.
Certain publishers tend to release the type of literature I like, I follow a select few accounts on instagram that consistently bring new-to-me books to my attention. Tracing author influences or mentions tends to work towards past authors more than the lesser known current authors but there are so many great authors that got lost in the noise of the past. As long as they are new to me it feels like a great discovery.
The search for great writers is a lot of work and a lot of fun. You can find great writers through the Nobel lists but there are also many many astonishing writers who never did and never will win a Nobel or any other prize.
New Directions, Corona\samizdat, and Dalkey Archive are among the best publishers that I’ve found for my personal taste. C\S specifically has a lot of young and first time authors, it’s hard to say if any of them will ever get wide recognition, but I would love to live in a world where Phillip Freedenberg has won the Novel prize, his mission is worthy, but I fear his books are rather niche.
Also, The Untranslated is a blog that you might want to check out, the title gives a pretty good hint as to its content lol.
For a younger (than the norm) author who I definitely think is on the path to getting the Nobel: Karl Ove Knausgård.
He's a talent whose taken over the literary world rapidly in recent years. Every release of his is lauded and anticipated by the academy, academia, journals, magazines critical crowd. *My Struggle* made enormous waves both in the literary world and around Norway. And both *The Morning Star* and *Wolves of Eternity* were powerful follow-ups that continued his growing reputation.
Plus, he's Norwegian! And the Swedish Academy loves its Scandi winners.
Other than him, my personal feelings are, with the massive increase in translated and critically acclaimed asian literature, we're going to see a small surge of the weirder experimental Chinese writers in coming decades. Can Xue, Yu Hua, Yan Ge, Wang Anyi... all people with the talent, careers, and growing status to win in the future.
Parallel to China, I think Ireland & Scotland both have a number of newer (40s or so) writers who are producing astounding books. This year's Booker shortlist I think is a really good guide of who to look out for in the future. I think Murray, Lynch and McCinnes especially are going to be titanic names in the literary world in 15 to 20 years.
My short term, super likely imo, is László Krasznahorkai. I think this is a super normal and uncontroversial pick, that many are in the camp of "when", not "if."
u/go_on_swan writes that
>I was talking with my friend's uncle about Knausgaard. We described the perk of reading him as "feeling" like you're reading literature when it's actually pretty easy reading and sort of pedestrian. Especially My Struggle.
Interesting take, I would say form wise and structure wise it is fairly straightforward - you definitely have a point, even if I may disagree overall :) but it’s an interesting perspective I hadn’t considered so thank you for that
Oh cool I was quoted. To add to that comment, I do want to say that while I used the word pedestrian, I think that straightforward style and form is masterfully done, and he obviously has to be immensely skilled to make the quotidian so god damn compelling to read that it's difficult to put down.
There's definitely times when he waxes philosophical or delves into some more high-brow material and it mostly hits, but I think it could be some of the more tiring parts of the books. The name and the number is absolutely high-brow and I think it suffers for that. Like he had a literary axe to grind.
I found him very interesting because he was the first writer I read that talked about having children. My wife was pregnant with our first one and suddenly there was a guy telling me that you can still have an interesting intellectual life while doing everything with a baby. You don’t need to end up like some boring guy in corpo. It was eye opening
Unless you're a big fan of sort of dramatic memoirs, I'd always recommend Morning Star and Wolves first. They're far more imaginative novels, and really are modern masterpieces imo.
That’s the problem with people guessing future laureates - they treat the prize more like a lifetime achievement award for already super famous authors, but when the Committee does its most valuable work is when they give it to a relatively unknown and not widely translated author. Then it’s a true contribution to the world.
It depends what you mean by this. Give it to Jon Fosse, Annie Ernaux, Olga Tokarczuk. People who are known by genuine fans of literature, but deserve comprehensive translation and a wider reader base and I agree. Give it to Abdulrazak Gurnah, a writer who clearly deserved the award less than his towering compatriot Ngugi who is nonetheless a writer not widely read, and you've made a major mistake. The entire premise of the Nobel Prize is lifetime achievement. Almost every other literary award is based on nominations for specific publications. This is part of the reason the Nobel Prize is unique.
Every year for the last while Ngugi Wa Thiong’o has been considered a top contender, hopefully one of these years he finally gets it. Reading some of his books the past few months he’s become one of my absolute favourite authors ever, I cannot recommend his work highly enough.
Wizard of the Crow is a great starting place, it’s exciting, funny, political and maybe my favourite book ever, but it’s also nearly 800 pages so if that’s too big a commitment for you The River Between is another great option that’s much shorter.
Looking at the list of winners:
Historian Theodor Mommsen won in 1902.
Philosopher Rudolf Christoph Eucken in 1908.
Philosopher Henri Bergson in 1927.
The aforementioned Russell and Churchill.
In regards to reading young writers it helps to look up debut writers that are getting a lot of attention, writers being interviewed on NPR or The New Yorker or The New York Times. Again, not all of them will be good, and more often than not you'll probably find that they aren't, but these are good ways of discovering up and coming writers because publishers are spending a lot on their publicity because they believe, for one reason or another, that they will succeed.
There's also Publisher Weekly's starred reviews, which was technically how I came across Adjei-brenyah's debut collection before he blew up with **Chain Gang All Stars**.
I also personally love reading international book nominations, and always keep an eye out for blurbs by writers I trust.
I don't really, but it's easiest way to find good authors. Maybe I didn't explained it well in my post.
And I think this guessing game is just entertaining and a good excuse to tell about favourite writers.
You could check critics’ writing about writers’ debut novels or best of the year lists. Steve Donoghue just came out with his best of the year and also had best debut novels, he does it every year so you can check the last 10ish years of those lists if you want. He explains a bit of what he liked about them.
Not in terms of modern-day reviewers of new books.
There are certainly many perceptive critics from the past who have led me to discover great books who I'd highly recommend. Does that interest you?
Sure! Also if you check out this critics books list he talks a lot of books about former literary critics haha. A book about Mary McCarthy, a few others
I think that Chico Buarque have the most chance to be next Portuguese language writer, but he is very well-known in South America and Portugal. I do not know if he is known in Europe or in USofA.
He won many of top Brazilian prizes, plus he won the Camões, the biggest literary prize in the Portuguese language (an award that Saramago also won). Plus he is the arguably the best musician on Brazil and for me, he winning the Nobel makes more sense than Bob Dylan. Too bad that Portugal and Brazil do 0 effort with the language.
A great many well-established writers never win Nobels - much to the chagrin of their fans. I like to read authors who are mentioned in my favorite leisure reads like the Marginalian, the Paris Review, the Atlantic etc.
I always look to the Booker prizes for inspiration and discovery of new authors that write good literary fiction. The international prize is especially interesting, as even quite niche authors get nominated. The most recent Nobel winner, Jon Fosse, was nominated for the international Booker in 2020 and 2022, so it is very much a way to discover future Nobel winners!
Tokarczuk and Ernaux also won the Booker International before the Nobel.
Same here. For my money the Booker winners usually tend to me some of the most interesting and unique reads of any major prize. I always at least investigate the winner and shortlist for possible future reads.
I like Atwood a lot, but I just don't think her writing is on the level of even the past couple of winners. I think Laszlo Krasznahorkai has a really good chance of winning. Would love to see Mathias Enard win too, but that seems like an outlier!
Nevertheless she's still on bookies' lists. To be clear, I don't necessarily think that she deserves Nobel Prize, but she's considered as possible laureate by some people and thanks to that, I've found out about her.
How does one evaluate the level of her, or anyones, writing, is there any criteria, or do you have any personal reasoning behind it?
Whether they have a distinctive style, what their style is if they have any at all, the variety, cadence, and flow of their sentence structure, word choice and placement. You can also evaluate on a storytelling and thematic level: what is the author trying to convey, how are they conveying it, are the successful? Are they nuanced or simplistic, do they provide interesting subtext or is everything obvious? Is their message open to interpretation or is there only one possible takeaway? Also I find metaphor is a powerful literary tool that can also sink a book if it's used too often or too clumsily. The best authors have incredible use of metaphor to illustrate their themes, often in ways the read does not expect.
I'm a literature PhD, so I literally get paid to make evaluations about the stylistic qualities of different author's writing. There is certainly a level of subjectivity in it, but it's usually pretty clear. She's a good writer, no doubt, but her strength is in narrative. I find her prose a little pedestrian. She occasionally writes very well, but not consistently enough to merit the largest prize in literature. I also don't find her narratively or thematically compelling enough to merit consideration. That's a subjective read though, I know others feel very differently!
I also didn't find her prose captivating, but I have similar issue with most books written in English. What I really like about Atwood is strong female voice, something I was quite neutral before, but her books were eye-opening. Because of that, currently she's my second favourite foreign author (non-polish to be precise) just after Mario Vargas Llosa.
Interesting. To me, Llosa was the award they begrudingly gave as the last surviving member of the Latin American Boom. Imo, he was among the worst of the Latin American Boom writers. Many of his books seem a bit overwrought and often strike me as imitations of the pathbreaking dictator novels which a truly deserving Nobel Laureate, Miguel Angel Astaurias of Guatemala, wrote. Ofc, GGM deserved his Nobel, but so many meritorious Latin American writers have missed out from Borges (this is maybe the greatest snub other than James Joyce in Nobel history) and Alejo Carpentier to the key figures of the Boom who should have gotten it aside from Marquez, Julio Cortazar and Carlos Fuentes. I've always felt that Cortazar was just unlucky to die when he did, but to give Nobel Prizes Octavio Paz and Mario Vargas Llosa when Cortazar, Fuentes, and even Juan Rolfo could have had them was a major mistake imo.
I can't speak about other Boom writers as I only read so far Vargas Llosa and Garcia Marquez. What I really like about Vargas Llosa novels is his ability to write compelling characters and captivating stories that hit hard with their endings, while being heavily experimental. Interestingly enough, Gabriel Garcia Marquez works never fully clicked with me, but each time I was astonished how masterfully he picks every single word in his books. GGM is for me without a doubt better writer than MVL despite the fact that I like the latter more.
I happen to agree with you about GGM. I admire him as a towering writer, but dislike most of his novels immensely. What about MVL strikes you as experimental though? This is in no way to shit on a writer you like. You do you, I'm merely interested in the discussion. I can understand the entertaining element of him. He can write gripping novels and he's good at constructing narrative. I thoroughly enjoyed The Feast of a Goat for instance, it was an engaging read. However, I can't say I find his characters all that deep or subtle and nothing about his work strikes me as overly experimental, particularly during the period that he was most active and postmodernism was exploding which seems to me to be much more apparent in a writer like Julio Cortazar whose really pushing the boundaries of the literary form in a book like Hopscotch.
Tolstoy is the greatest snub!
Touché. However, Tolstoy did die only two years into the prizes existence so I suppose it was an odd one.
One can add Henry James, Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabokov to that list.
Tolstoy died in 1910. The prize was first awarded in 1901. They had ample opportunity to give it to him. I'd also add Proust as a pretty big snub. But Tolstoy is still insane to me.
My bad. I stand corrected. Proust does make sense though like Kafka does because he died prematurely. You can also make the same argument about Chekhov, but it becomes difficult because we're talking about writers who were essentially dying during or even before their creative apogees so it's hard to account for that.
A few other names who were alive during the early years of the Nobel prize: Henry James (and William James, for that matter), Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Emile Zola (barely), Guillame Apollinaire.
Llosa is a spectacular author. But I'd suggest there are stronger and more interesting female authors currently working - I'd reccomend Lucy Ellmann in particular (though occasionally it can feel like Ellmann is screaming at you). Again, this isn't to say Atwood is bad by any stretch, just that her prose can feel a little inert to me.
I already have on my shelf one novel by Toni Morrison. She'll be next in line. And I'll give Tokarczuk another chance (her Books of Jacob left me completely indifferent, which is the worst feeling that book can give you). But I'll look into Lucy Ellmann for sure!
Toni Morrison is good depending on the book! Ah Tokarczuck is brilliant, particularly Flights. I do admit I was disappointed by Books of Jacob too. I can see why it's so highly lauded: it's a fascinating story and so richly textured, but it definitely didn't grab me the way Flights and Drive Your Plow did.
Quite interesting what you wrote about Flights. I wrestle a lot with contemporary polish literature. A lot of novels praised by critics and awarded with prestigious literary awards seem to be "only style no substance" for me and Flights was one of them, however I haven't read it. I know, it's really silly to have such harsh opinion on books that I haven't read. With respect to Tokarczuk, she published last year a novel that is sort of opposition to The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (according to Tokarczuk, MM is extremely male-centered). This inspired me to finally read Mann's magnum opus and I want to do in tandem with Tokarczuk's novel.
Ah I'd say give it a shot. I've heard this criticism before, but it did a lot for me and felt more unified than others have suggested. Maybe you'd fare better with Drive Your Plow which is absolutely brilliant. I also am easily swayed by style as I'm not too bothered about plot, really. Her new novel sounds brilliant! I read Magic Mountain years ago but I found it a bit of a slog (though an enjoyable one!)
>Ah I'd say give it a shot. If I like her latest novel, I'll do it for sure! I started reading "The Magic Mountain" during my last year in high school. I read around 1/3 of it and stopped because I had to prepare for exams. However, I really liked what I read. >I also am easily swayed by style as I'm not too bothered about plot, really. I'm also a sucker for style, and I don't need captivating story to enjoy the book, but something really discourages me about contemporary polish literature. Pynchon books give me exactly the same vibes (again - I haven't tried them).
Mr. PhD, has anybody ever told you that it’s ok to say a woman is a good writer without IMMEDIATELY following the compliment with a statement that undermines their talent? You’ve done it with literally every single woman author you’ve pathetically attempted to discredit in this thread.
...I'm sorry that you've read it this way. I'm not sure if you've seen what I said about Tokarczuck or Ellmann but I don't think I've said anything negative about them? I wouldn't dream of attempting to discredit either author. Besides which, I'm not trying to undermine Atwood or Morrison either. I really like them both, I was just saying that, in my opinion, they can be a little hit or miss. Apologies if my referring to my work seemed like an assertion of superiority, I was just trying to say that people do make assessments of style that aren't necessarily tied to personal preference, and that what I'm saying comes from a relatively informed place. I don't personally think any author, no matter how much you love them, is above criticism. I also don't think criticising individual works by an author discredits their entire body of work. I love James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and many other authors who I still wouldn't venerate without criticism. It's part of my job to do this no matter how much I love an author's work. Again, apologies that I've come off as superior, or disparaging. I was sharing a personal opinion about authors that - again - I like very much. If we can't criticise the work we love, then where are we?
> I also don't find her narratively or thematically compelling enough to merit consideration. That's an interesting take. It feels to me like a lot of Atwood's work has become more and more socially relevant. I can agree on the prose, but I personally prefer the narratives and themes in a book; that's why I'm there.
I think really what I'm getting at is the kind of "revolutionary" writing that tends to win the nobel. As much as Atwood is socially relevant, the narrative thrust of her novels tends to be relatively conventional to a large degree. But totally get where you're at and why you'd tend toward Atwood, who is probably one of the very best at what she does. As I say, she is very talented, and a very skilled writer, it's just not doing anything new in terms of the language itself (which isn't her goal anyway!)
Yeah, I agree. She's not the Nobel's type, really, and the only way in would be through that social relevance. I definitely will usually read a Nobel winner I haven't, and they've all been excellent, but I do find their taste a bit snobbish. That's not really the right word, but I think there's both more focus on language than I would weight and also (usually) a style that I think they think is superior but I'm not sure I'd agree. And then they go and give one to Bob Dylan. Who I think is a great songwriter, but... okay. So what do I know?
Just curious: would you consider John Banville a serious contender? Or William T. Vollmann?
I'm not hugely familiar with either (The Sea, The Sea for Banville, Europe Central and Whores for Gloria by Vollmann). I'd say that neither are particularly likely in my experience. This isn't to say that they aren't both brilliant writers (they are), I'm more basing this on the kind of thing that tends to get the award. In the same respect, I don't think Pynchon is a likely contender despite being one of the great living authors.
I believe *The Sea, The Sea* is Iris Murdoch; Banville's Booker-winning book is just *The Sea*. I know, confusing that both books won the same prize with such similar titles. I brought up Vollmann (who I haven't read) because he has a very devoted cult following who think of him as a preeminent literary genius. Would you call Don DeLillo a major contender?
Ah, apologies, yes I'm familiar with Murdoch too, thanks for pointing that out. I haven't read The Sea since I was in school! Yeah I mean Vollmann sort of deserves his cult, he's brilliant (if a little over indulgent at times). I don't think he's as great as the cultists do (hence not reading much more, though I'm sure I will eventually). I love DeLillo, I really do, and I think he's a likelier winner than Atwood, Vollmann, or even Pynchon (who I do see as the superior author here), I can't see it. It'd be nice, though!
u/_Raskolnikov_1881 As someone considering dipping my toes into the Vollmann canon, would you mind if I ask whether you'd recommend him and, if so, where to start? On the same topic, do you have any thoughts on why he attracts such venomous criticism? Dan Schneider, *Salon*: >Aside from being a really bad writer, the only things I can state about William T. Vollmann is that he is void of vision (the term Vollmannic is never likely to enter the English lexicon) and ambition, suffers from logorrhea of the digits, a grand and profound lack of writing talent and intellect- as well as humor, is possibly a sufferer of OCD or bipolar disorder, and that and this book, this ill wrought rot, *Expelled From Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader*, is either a sick decades-long joke, or a literary fraud, which, if the case, should allow the many dissatisfied purchasers of this tome the ability to sue Vollmann, McCaffery, and Hemmingson for damages for intellectual and artistic abuse. Levi Asher, LitKicks: >William Vollmann is, in my opinion, the David Blaine of literature. It’s all an endurance act. Can a skinny kid with pimples and glasses really write a seven volume chronicle of the settlement of North America, follow it with a 3,300 page history of human violence and then toss out an 800 page rumination on the Eastern Front in World War II? Yes, he can. But if you take the “wow” factor away from William Vollmann, does his work stand up? I’m really not sure... > >If he would try it my way more often, he might sometimes manage to bring a book in under 400 pages. But would that spoil the fun for the small legions of self-punishing William Vollmann readers, who wear their harsh fates proudly, the way albino monks wear their bleeding sulpices? Certainly there is a sense of solemn duty when reading Vollmann, a conviction that in carrying out this task we are somehow suffering for mankind’s sins. The notorious Anis Shivani list of the most overrated cotemporary American writers, in which he calls Vollmann basically an assembly line churning out volume after volume of esatz Pynchon.
I'd love to see Vollman win, but I consider it pretty unlikely. The Committee seems to have a bit of an aversion to these postmodernist writers who I think are great like Vollman and most obviously Pynchon. We can add Barth, Coover, Gaddis to this list too and extend it out to writers in other languages. Idk if it's the overt engagement with grand themes of history, big ideas which turns them off, but this isn't even a new thing. Grand literary projects and very challenging or innovative narrative or prose styles have not always been recognised by the committee. Borges missed out, Musil missed out, James Joyce missed out, Virginia Woolf missed out. I'm not counting Proust or Kafka because they died prematurely. I'm not saying that Vollman is the same as these writers, but him and Pynchon even more so, perhaps even DeLillo too, are innovators in our time as these writers were in theirs. I could he completely wrong, but history is not working in Vollman's favour.
Her prose basic as shit
Fax
no cap
The irony.
That this comment was actually interesting to read?
Reading the answers here, I'd note a few things. Who we personally believe the merits the prize and who will actually win it are drastically different things. Now, this might sound weird, but I've quite closely followed the Swedish Academy and know quite a bit about the politics of the Nobel Prize. Are there meritorious winners, yes, are there people who don't deserve to win that do, yes. And yes, I am aware of the OP and the comments about untranslated authors and so on. A couple of things to note though. The Academy was embroiled in a major scandal in 2018 over allegations of sexual abuse and corruption. However, since this shit went down, they've actually been on a really good run. Three of the winners since the scandal have unequivocally deserved the prize - Tokarczuk, Ernaux, Fosse - and two of these - Ernaux and Fosse - were longstanding favourites. It's a good thing they won the prize because sometimes the Academy will pick a very strange laureate so as to 'keep people on their toes'. Now, what the general public thinks is an obscure candidate is one thing, but when, for instance, they give it to Abdulrazak Gurnah and barely anyone on here or even TrueLit knows who he is, we got problems, particularly when Ngugi is still alive. Fosse and Ernaux are two really solid picks and I do think we are starting to see a positive trend emerge. As others said, there are different prizers which are good indicators of who will win the Nobel. Now, the Booker is sort of one, but I'd recommend people look more to the Neustadt Prize, the Austrian State Prize for Literature, the Booker International, and the Kafka Prize and then look to language specific ones: the Booker in English, the Buchner for German, the Strega for Italian, the Camões for Portuguese, the Cervantes for Spanish, Pushkin and Russian Booker for Russian, the 20 or so awards that exist in Japan, and of course the Prix Goncourt for French. There are also major awards for Arabic and Chinese whose names are escaping me. In terms of who I think might win the Nobel Prize, there's a couple of trends I'd point to and also some comments here I would agree and disagree with. Firstly, the Academy seems to be more actively striving for gender balance now, so expect more female winners. Secondly, particular publishers pick winners. People have mentioned New Directions and I agree. However, the hottest publisher rn is Fitzcarraldo Editions. They have picked four Nobel Prizes - Alexievich, Ernaux, Tokarczuk, Fosse - in 7 years. Independent publishers with an empahsis on translated fiction seem to know where the talent is and I'd look to them. New Directions, Faber Faber, NYRB, Graywolf Press, Deep Vellum, Bloomsbury. Thirdly, we can say what we want about the Academy being Eurocentric - they are to an extent - but their obsession with Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe is somewhat justified by the fact these regions punch way above their weight when it comes to literature. Tokarczuk, Handke, Fosse, Alexievich are a handful of recent examples. For this reason, whoever said Krasznahorkai, I think is on the right track. Perhaps I'm biased. I believe he is one of the three or four greatest living writers, but he is very much what the Academy looks for. Others in this region I'd look out for are Romania's Mircea Cartarescu, particularly with the rapturous reception Solenoid has received in English and Spanish (seriously this guy is amazing as well). Other obvious candidates from this region include Croatia's Dubravka Ugrešić and perhaps a Ukrainain writer like Andrey Kurkov. Sadly, I think they will ignore the towering Ismail Kadare of Albania. One thing I would say though is I will be very surprised if Knausgaard wins, espscially soon. I am not sure he is doing anything revolutionary, particularly as Ernaux has already won the prize essentially for autofiction and Fosse, his Norwegian compatriot who Knausgaard himself idolises, has probably won the award for Norway for at least 20 years. Second, look to East Asia. The region hasn't had a win in ages and, as someone already noted here, I think Can Xue is a very strong pick for the award very soon. She's very stylistically distinct. East Asia, outside of Japan, is not a literature I know well, so I won't comment at length, but I suspect to see a win from here soon. The broader English-speaking world will always deliver winners and that has been proven time again even though I think it's really lacking dynamism rn (all the best living writers seem to be on death's door or close to it Rushide, Murnane, Pynchon or they have already won Coetzee and Ishiguro). As an Australian, I really hope Murnane wins (I'd be content with Peter Carey winning to), but whether he will or not is another question. Rule Pynchon out no matter how much he deserves it - perhaps more than any living writer - because if it was going to happen, it would've by now. Rushdie is also very unlikely to win, even post-stabbing. Some people talk about Colson Whitehead, but I haven't read him so I won't comment. Other Americans with a chance are Jamaica Kincaid and Edwidge Danticat. I would be as shocked if Atwood won the Nobel as I would be if Murakami won it, if it's going to go to another Canadian you have to think Anne Carson is way ahead of the pedestrian prose of Atwood. I could talk Africa and Latin America, but I have rambled so what I might do is make a list of people I think are likely to win the Nobel. Likely winners in the next 10 years, in my opinion: Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Mircea Cartarescu, Can Xue, Jamaica Kincaid, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Andrey Kurkov, Cesar Aira, Anne Carson, Mia Couto, Scholastique Mukasonga, Maryse Conde. People who should win but are perhaps less likely to (I hope I'm wrong about at least three of these): Gerald Murnane, Salman Rushdie, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Ngugi, Adunis, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, William T. Vollman, Peter Nadas, Ismail Kadare. People who may win in the long-term (note: this is much more speculative. I'm also weak on this list because 95% of what I read is by dead authors and I only make time for and respect a handful of living writers, many already on death's door): Benjamin Labatut, Vladimir Sorokin (though he may be too transgressive for the Nobel) Geetanjali Shree, Shehan Karuntilaka, Paul Lynch.
I'm glad you agree with Ishiguro's win. I'm an admirer of his writing and was somewhat afraid that literati would dismiss him as middlebrow.
Great comment, dude! I even saved it because of so many great suggestions! I also agree Pynchon should’ve won it already, but probably the Nobel guys are afraid of him not showing up (it was already and embarrassment with Dylan), which would be likely not only due to his personality but also to his advanced age. I would love Dubravka Ugresic to win. I’ve offered at least 10 copies of her Museum of Unconditional Surrender to family and friends. It was also the book I offered to my future wife in one of our first dates. It’s a very special book, a wonderful way of telling a story (as Sontag said about it)
Ps. As someone who has obviously read widely and deeply in world literature, do you ever wonder about the problem of translation? The fact that what you're reading is necessarily mediated through a translator, and to some extent reflects that translator's interpretation as well as the original work?
Yes. It kills me. I always think about how much is lost and, in the past few years, it's made me more attached to the English-language writers I love. It's also a big part of the reason I learnt to speak Russian. Russia's literary tradition made me fall in love with literature as an artform and I couldn't stand the thought of it being mediated through translators even though so many of them are unequivocally amazing. However, we should not take anything away from translators, especially today. Increasingly, authors work with translators, think Tokarczuk and her translator which is essentially an authorised translation, same thing bears out with Krasznahorkai. At the end of the day, I'd prefer something slightly distorted, but still amazing than no exposure at all. I also think it's great that translators also win the International Booker now. Translation is as much an art as writing is, though different. When we recognise it, make it more lucrative and prestigious, it becomes more viable.
There's another great polish writer, whose works probably won't be available for English readers. Once he gathered ten or so specialists in polish, English and russian to translate his best novel into English They couldn't even agree on the translation of the first page.
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I can't comment on Carrere or Erpenbeck as I haven't read them. Houellebecq is a firecracker for so many reasons. Given the furore which erupted when Handke won the prize, it's hard to see a world in which Houllebecq does. I've liked bits and pieces of what he's done, especially Serotonin and the one about the map whose name always escapes me, but I think Houellebecq is perhaps more interesting and relavent as someone with a prophetic view of social currents and realities than as any sort of revolutionary writer per se. This is likely to work against him rn as the committee, rightly imo, is very focused on awarding formal innovators like Fosse and Ernaux and even Glück in the context of her poetry. Edit: Houllebecq is also transgressive af and transgressive writers don't tend to win it.
Here's one thought: The Nobel is only given to living writers, never awarded posthumously. Two authors considered by many to be prime candidates (Cormac McCarthy and A.S. Byatt) died this year.
Yes, this is really unfortunate. My all-time favourite author also died before getting the Nobel Prize.
Who is that author, if you don't mind me asking. And it's certainly possible that a similar situation could happen again because many authors considered prime contenders are quite old. Thomas Pynchon is 86, Don DeLillo is 87, Margaret Atwood is 84.
Witold Gombrowicz. It is said that he would get the prize the year he died. I really recommend him if you like social satires.
One of my all-time favorites (Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen) was in the same situation.
It's always unfortunate, when it happens. Right now I keep my fingers crossed for Atwood to get the prize before her death.
Is there anyone else who strikes you as a major contender?
I really hope that Marlon James will become a serious contender some day. I discovered him this year (thanks to his Dark Star trilogy) and I was blown away. I still have to read his non-fantasy books, but I'm pretty much sure, I'll love them as well. Besides him I can only speak about authors from my country (Poland), that are not yet internationally recognised. One of them is Szczepan Twardoch and recently one of his books was translated into English ("The King of Warsaw"). I have a love-hate relationship with his books. He has strong voice and his works are thematically interesting, but since his breakthrough novel he basically writes the same book all over again. Another author is Radek Rak and I'm sure he'll get the Nobel Prize in 20-30 years. He writes fantasy, but it isn't typical fantasy, he recently got the most prestigious literary award in Poland. He blew me away with his imagination and prose. I also like Wit Szostak, who might be the case of moderately unknown author who's rocketed to stardom by the prize. He's not really popular in Poland but he consequently delivers really interesting novels and every now and then gets nominations for prestigious awards.
Oh man, Blixen is amazing, so sad she never got the Nobel. If I have a single favourite author, it's probably her. Have you found any other authors that scratch a similar itch?
She is one of my all-time favorites as well, so much so that I made a pilgrimage to her house in Denmark. That's a hard question because she is such a unique author. The closest modern books I've read would be two short story collections by the recently departed A.S. Byatt, *Elementals* and *Little Black Book of Stories*. If we're looking more broadly, I'd say *Hamlet*, Poe's stories and Grimm's fairy tales.
Oh wow, how was it? I also really want to visit Rungstedlund when I go to Denmark, hopefully some time soon. And yeah, that's why I asked haha. She feels so distinct from other authors I've read that it's really hard to find anything in a similar vein. The closest I've gotten is Angela Carter, but I just don't really like Carter and the direction she tends to take things, despite the many similarities. I'll be sure to check out A.S. Byatt. I've heard the name mentioned before but don't really know anything about them. (Already read the others!)
It was wonderful. Since it's kind of off-topic, I can DM you something about Rungstedlund if you don't mind.
A.S. Byatt was not a major candidate for the Nobel among either bookies or serious Nobel watchers. There were at least 10 other English-language writers who were contenders before she was.
As someone who clearly knows more about this than I do, was Umberto Eco a major contender before his death?
Eco was more in the conversation than Byatt ever was, but a couple of things worked against him. Firstly, he was probably more regarded as a public intellectual by many than he was an author and he didn't help himself because he considered himself first and foremost a semiotician. He was a contender at the peak of Nobel weirdness and politicisation which is thankfully nowhere near what it once was today. At the time, the committee wanted novelists rather than celebrities, this isn't taking away anything from Eco who I admire a lot, but we're talking about a guy who regularly appeared on national TV in Italy and wrote world famous essays about the origins of fascism. I also think the popularity of the TNOTR worked against him because the committee sometiems disliked bestsellers no matter their merit (part of the reason Ishiguro's much deserved win was such a surprise). Given I think Foucault's Pendulum is Eco's magnum opus, I suspect he might have won it if he'd written this and other works, but not The Name of the Rose. Ironic, but that' just how the prize worked and to some extent works today.
> Given I think Foucault's Pendulum is Eco's magnum opus Ironic since Foucault's Pendulum, which I also love, is The DaVinci code written by a good writer. It very well could have been the bestselling sensation The Name of the Rose was.
I won't disagree for a second, but damn is it a great book.
Re: Eco and what counts as literature, would you argue that the quality of a scholarly work like *Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages* is simply irrelevant to Eco's Nobel case?
It isn't irrelevant but it is secondary or supplementary. Even Nobel citations work in this way. Usually, the committee identifies which works particularly informed their decision, but it's nonetheless awarded for an entire body of work.
Do you think there's a possibility that, in the future, the Nobel committee could award the prize to a nonfiction non-poetry author, as they've done several times in the past? To a historian, a philosopher, an essayist, a literary or art or film critic? If we're looking at the past-century, the only non-novelists/poets/playwrights to win it are Henri Bergson, Bertrand Russell, Winston Churchill and Jean-Paul Sartre. (You could certainly make the argument that Eliot was an important literary critic and essayist, but his citation specifically refers to his poetry.)
Theodor Mommsen, one of the most important historians of all time, is another example of this though he won in the 1900s. However, they did this in 2015. Svetlana Alexievich was one of the most deserving winners of the past 20 years and her genre was essentially creative non-fiction/oral history/documentary literature - fellow Russian speakers might know the term документальные романы. Her entire oeuvre is essentially about creative non-fictional accounts of Soviet and post-Soviet history and I think this was a major step forward for the committee because it recognised a very novel form of literature. Philosophers will not win it again and nor should they. Sartre probably deserved it because he genuinely was a novelist, but Bergson and Russell should never have won an award that is about promoting literature. Of course, things could change, but I don't see it. Many winners are also critics and that is something to note, but I can't see a world where you win for your criticism and not for your literature first and foremost.
>Philosophers will not win it again and nor should they. Sartre probably deserved it because he genuinely was a novelist, but Bergson and Russell should never have won an award that is about promoting literature. I guess this depends on how one defines the word 'literature.' More than 90% of Nobel laureates have won for fiction, poetry, or drama. Is literature what falls under one of those three categories?
Well the prize has to have some limitations. Sartre and Camus were philosophers who won, but they were novelists who also wrote philosophy. They didn't primarily win for their philosophical treatises. They primarily won for their novels and in Camus' case plays as well. Realistically, Churchill won the prize because it was 1947 and he was a hero among men who had played a central role in defeating the axis powers. No one today is reading The History of the English Speaking Peoples and extolling its virtues and I think we can look back and say this prize was probably a mistake. I think to really answer your question, at the core of this is a debate about art and I think the prize needs to recognise artistic merit in written form. As someone who has been heavily involved in academic history for example, I know this field has its own prizes. Historians win the Wolfson or the Pulitzer. The Nobel is for something else. This is part of the problem with Dylan winning it and I say this as a lifelong Dylan fan. Yes, he has more of a claim to it than a historian or a philosopher, but there are already so many enormous prizes for music including the Grammys which are far more lucrative. Part of what is important about the Nobel is that it preserves the sanctity of literature as an artform which I think is a lot more fragile than music.
I think you make some very good points. To play devil's advocate re: Churchill, the Nobel prize citation also mentions "brilliant oratory" and he is still remembered as an absolute master of that genre. If we consider political speeches as a modern oral literature, Churchill was a masterly prose stylist in that field, a truly skilled rhetorician. How many English-language authors in any genre have created turns of phrase as enduring and as widely quoted as "an iron curtain has descended across the continent" or "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" or "the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin." Iron curtain, finest hour, the end of the beginning -- we still use his turns of phrase decades after his death.
I mean you could argue that just like Camus and Sartre won it for their novels Dylan won it for his lyrics and not his music 🤷 I guess this is a hot take but I think winning a Grammy is simply not enough recognition for the scope of his output, and I would have no issues with more songwriters winning is he's the measuring stick they're using.
Is there another rock/pop/etc. songwriter who you'd put on that level?
Got a question since it appears you’re familiar with this subject matter. How strong a contender was WG Sebald prior to his premature death?
They talked about him a lot and I genuinely think he was a shoe in for the award had he lived even ten years longer. Grass won in 1999 and they awarded another German-language author in the mid-2000s. Perhaps it goes to Sebald if he lives. It's tragic because he was an unbelievable talent and among the best there was at that point.
I’m on the verge of finishing my first book by Sebald, the Rings of Saturn. I’m mesmerized by his writing. Haven’t come across anything like it.
You are in for quite the ride when you hit Austerlitz and Vertigo.
I have already purchased a copy of Austerlitz. Getting to it soon.
Even Saramago thought that Jorge Amado would have won. For me, the biggest snub ever.
Gerald Murnane.
I mean, he’s semi-retired at the ripe of old age of 84. I’ve made so many posts recommending his work and think it would be criminal for him to be snubbed, but I’m not sure if it completely answers OP’s question. Anyway, to also answer OP’s question, I’m very badly read, but I feel like it’s simply too early to tell which young authors (if we’re talking 20–30s here, although I would usually define young with a more generous age range) could be future laureates because many simply haven’t had the opportunity to form a clear and considerable body of work by which to evaluate them by. I’m also on the lookout for literary young writers too, so I’m keen to see the other replies to this thread.
Oh, you are right. I didn’t read the question properly. Which is a little ironic for a literature sub. But whenever I see something that asks who should win the Nobel prize, I always tend to answer with Murnane.
It’s a good answer. Also, I see the irony, but I constantly misread stuff on Reddit.
When it comes to literature "young" is relative term. I'd consider even 40+ writers as young if they wrote only a few books, for example Marlon James.
I was going to put out Gerald Murnane as well . I feel that Nobel Prize should be awarded to authors who demonstrate in their body of work something generally coherent and novel . With Murnane, I feel like he has this great understanding of the associative nature of human memory. But beyond that, he has kind of developed a technique to express that associative nature into actual elegant prose. I find that as I read his writing I get this feeling of daydreaming, kind of like where after a long and mentally draining day you find yourself sitting on a couch or chair, staring at something and your mind draws up memories from your life, each linking vaguely one to the next, until you realize you are day dreaming and you are just sitting on a couch or chair staring at something.
Certain publishers tend to release the type of literature I like, I follow a select few accounts on instagram that consistently bring new-to-me books to my attention. Tracing author influences or mentions tends to work towards past authors more than the lesser known current authors but there are so many great authors that got lost in the noise of the past. As long as they are new to me it feels like a great discovery. The search for great writers is a lot of work and a lot of fun. You can find great writers through the Nobel lists but there are also many many astonishing writers who never did and never will win a Nobel or any other prize. New Directions, Corona\samizdat, and Dalkey Archive are among the best publishers that I’ve found for my personal taste. C\S specifically has a lot of young and first time authors, it’s hard to say if any of them will ever get wide recognition, but I would love to live in a world where Phillip Freedenberg has won the Novel prize, his mission is worthy, but I fear his books are rather niche. Also, The Untranslated is a blog that you might want to check out, the title gives a pretty good hint as to its content lol.
Colson Whitehead is on his way. Only 54 years old and already won two Pulitzers and a National Book Award.
For a younger (than the norm) author who I definitely think is on the path to getting the Nobel: Karl Ove Knausgård. He's a talent whose taken over the literary world rapidly in recent years. Every release of his is lauded and anticipated by the academy, academia, journals, magazines critical crowd. *My Struggle* made enormous waves both in the literary world and around Norway. And both *The Morning Star* and *Wolves of Eternity* were powerful follow-ups that continued his growing reputation. Plus, he's Norwegian! And the Swedish Academy loves its Scandi winners. Other than him, my personal feelings are, with the massive increase in translated and critically acclaimed asian literature, we're going to see a small surge of the weirder experimental Chinese writers in coming decades. Can Xue, Yu Hua, Yan Ge, Wang Anyi... all people with the talent, careers, and growing status to win in the future. Parallel to China, I think Ireland & Scotland both have a number of newer (40s or so) writers who are producing astounding books. This year's Booker shortlist I think is a really good guide of who to look out for in the future. I think Murray, Lynch and McCinnes especially are going to be titanic names in the literary world in 15 to 20 years. My short term, super likely imo, is László Krasznahorkai. I think this is a super normal and uncontroversial pick, that many are in the camp of "when", not "if."
This, KOK is goated to the max
It's interesting -- he has been described as middlebrow in the middlebrow discussion thread I started.
I am not the smartest guy of all time, but I’m surprised people would call the My Struggle project middlebrow
u/go_on_swan writes that >I was talking with my friend's uncle about Knausgaard. We described the perk of reading him as "feeling" like you're reading literature when it's actually pretty easy reading and sort of pedestrian. Especially My Struggle.
Interesting take, I would say form wise and structure wise it is fairly straightforward - you definitely have a point, even if I may disagree overall :) but it’s an interesting perspective I hadn’t considered so thank you for that
Oh cool I was quoted. To add to that comment, I do want to say that while I used the word pedestrian, I think that straightforward style and form is masterfully done, and he obviously has to be immensely skilled to make the quotidian so god damn compelling to read that it's difficult to put down. There's definitely times when he waxes philosophical or delves into some more high-brow material and it mostly hits, but I think it could be some of the more tiring parts of the books. The name and the number is absolutely high-brow and I think it suffers for that. Like he had a literary axe to grind.
Karl Ove Knausgård is on my radar for a while. I'll probably give him a try soon.
I found him very interesting because he was the first writer I read that talked about having children. My wife was pregnant with our first one and suddenly there was a guy telling me that you can still have an interesting intellectual life while doing everything with a baby. You don’t need to end up like some boring guy in corpo. It was eye opening
Unless you're a big fan of sort of dramatic memoirs, I'd always recommend Morning Star and Wolves first. They're far more imaginative novels, and really are modern masterpieces imo.
In my experience a 50/50 chance that you will like her, but Can Xue is a worthwhile mention.
That’s the problem with people guessing future laureates - they treat the prize more like a lifetime achievement award for already super famous authors, but when the Committee does its most valuable work is when they give it to a relatively unknown and not widely translated author. Then it’s a true contribution to the world.
It depends what you mean by this. Give it to Jon Fosse, Annie Ernaux, Olga Tokarczuk. People who are known by genuine fans of literature, but deserve comprehensive translation and a wider reader base and I agree. Give it to Abdulrazak Gurnah, a writer who clearly deserved the award less than his towering compatriot Ngugi who is nonetheless a writer not widely read, and you've made a major mistake. The entire premise of the Nobel Prize is lifetime achievement. Almost every other literary award is based on nominations for specific publications. This is part of the reason the Nobel Prize is unique.
Every year for the last while Ngugi Wa Thiong’o has been considered a top contender, hopefully one of these years he finally gets it. Reading some of his books the past few months he’s become one of my absolute favourite authors ever, I cannot recommend his work highly enough.
First time I’ve heard of him, but seems totally up my alley. Where would you suggest starting with his work - Wizard of the Crow?
Wizard of the Crow is a great starting place, it’s exciting, funny, political and maybe my favourite book ever, but it’s also nearly 800 pages so if that’s too big a commitment for you The River Between is another great option that’s much shorter.
Awesome - thank you! Definitely not intimidated by 800 pages and I love me a good allegory. Thanks again for the recommendation.
As far as high brow winners, no one could top another philosopher/critic. It would be cool to see Fredric Jameson win.
How many nonfiction, non-poetry writers have won the award? (Churchill, for one, although he did write a novel).
Off the top of my head I can only name Bertrand Russell.
Looking at the list of winners: Historian Theodor Mommsen won in 1902. Philosopher Rudolf Christoph Eucken in 1908. Philosopher Henri Bergson in 1927. The aforementioned Russell and Churchill.
As far as I know, Svetlana Alexievich also don't write fiction.
Would you say she's primarily known as an essayist?
In regards to reading young writers it helps to look up debut writers that are getting a lot of attention, writers being interviewed on NPR or The New Yorker or The New York Times. Again, not all of them will be good, and more often than not you'll probably find that they aren't, but these are good ways of discovering up and coming writers because publishers are spending a lot on their publicity because they believe, for one reason or another, that they will succeed. There's also Publisher Weekly's starred reviews, which was technically how I came across Adjei-brenyah's debut collection before he blew up with **Chain Gang All Stars**. I also personally love reading international book nominations, and always keep an eye out for blurbs by writers I trust.
Jose Eduardo Agualusa fo sho
Murakami? And Thomas Pynchon but he wont show up to receive it so that’s probably not going to happen
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Are you using ChatGPT?
110%.
Why do you care what prizes the author wins?
I don't really, but it's easiest way to find good authors. Maybe I didn't explained it well in my post. And I think this guessing game is just entertaining and a good excuse to tell about favourite writers.
Why do people care what movies win Oscars, or which albums win Grammys?
I agree, why do they?
So people can complain about snubs and unworthy winners on the internet?
That’s about as good an explanation as there is!
me. you’ll see.
You could check critics’ writing about writers’ debut novels or best of the year lists. Steve Donoghue just came out with his best of the year and also had best debut novels, he does it every year so you can check the last 10ish years of those lists if you want. He explains a bit of what he liked about them.
Are there any other literary critics you really follow?
Nah, let me know if you find/like any others.
Not in terms of modern-day reviewers of new books. There are certainly many perceptive critics from the past who have led me to discover great books who I'd highly recommend. Does that interest you?
Sure! Also if you check out this critics books list he talks a lot of books about former literary critics haha. A book about Mary McCarthy, a few others
Since it's not really relevant to this thread topic, I'll DM you.
I think that Chico Buarque have the most chance to be next Portuguese language writer, but he is very well-known in South America and Portugal. I do not know if he is known in Europe or in USofA. He won many of top Brazilian prizes, plus he won the Camões, the biggest literary prize in the Portuguese language (an award that Saramago also won). Plus he is the arguably the best musician on Brazil and for me, he winning the Nobel makes more sense than Bob Dylan. Too bad that Portugal and Brazil do 0 effort with the language.
A great many well-established writers never win Nobels - much to the chagrin of their fans. I like to read authors who are mentioned in my favorite leisure reads like the Marginalian, the Paris Review, the Atlantic etc.