America hasn't won a Nobel Prize in Lit since 1993

dahlfan · Oct 1, 2009

Toni Morrison. What does that say about us? Are we not producing enough good literature?

motormind · Oct 1, 2009

dahlfan said:
Toni Morrison.What does that say about us? Are we not producing enough good literature?

Who cares? The Nobel Prize is overrated anyway.

Cassiopeia · Oct 1, 2009

I don't think it's overrated and I think it's sad we haven't had any since then.

motormind · Oct 1, 2009

Cassiopeia said:
I don't think it's overrated and I think it's sad we haven't had any since then.

I can't recall ever enjoying anything that won a Nobel Prize. So for me personally it's no mark of quality.

dahlfan · Oct 1, 2009

motormind said:
I can't recall ever enjoying anything that won a Nobel Prize. So for me personally it's no mark of quality.

Not a Sinclair Lewis fan? He's one of my personal literary heroes...what about Steinbeck, you think he was rubbish? Doris Lessing? Toni Morrison?

Stijn Hommes · Oct 1, 2009

The Nobel Prize can be won by pretty much anyone on the planet, so I don't see how one particular country not winning it for some time is a problem at all. I don't even remember any novels by Nobel winners, so I can't say I find it an important benchmark either.

motormind · Oct 1, 2009

dahlfan said:
Not a Sinclair Lewis fan? He's one of my personal literary heroes...what about Steinbeck, you think he was rubbish? Doris Lessing? Toni Morrison?

I am not saying anyone of them is rubbish, but their writing doesn't do anything for me. Sorry!

Cassiopeia · Oct 1, 2009

If one day someone decided my work was Nobel worthy, I'd probably never stop jumping up and down for joy.

Priene · Oct 1, 2009

I've read works by nine of the winners since Toni Morrison, and they are all exceptional writers. Which is probably why they won the Nobel Prize.

maestrowork · Oct 1, 2009

motormind said:
I can't recall ever enjoying anything that won a Nobel Prize. So for me personally it's no mark of quality.

Or maybe it's a sign that American readers don't know anything about quality. Have you thought about that?

I mean, are you seriously saying that Toni Morrison wasn't a great writer just because you didn't enjoy her books as much as, say, the Da Vinci Code?

maestrowork · Oct 1, 2009

motormind said:
I am not saying anyone of them is rubbish, but their writing doesn't do anything for me. Sorry!

And that's maybe why you're not voting for the Nobel Prize?

motormind · Oct 1, 2009

maestrowork said:
And that's maybe why you're not voting for the Nobel Prize?

Heck, it's not like I'm in danger of ever getting one. I wouldn't mind the money, though.

alleycat · Oct 1, 2009

The Nobel is usually given for one person's body of work (sometimes over decades), so I'm not sure it's a very good measure of a country's current literary worth.

maestrowork · Oct 1, 2009

alleycat said:
The Nobel is usually given for one person's body of work (sometimes over decades), so I'm not sure it's a very good measure of a country's current literary worth.

Can we think of a US person's body of work that is worthy of a Nobel Prize right now? Nomination, anyone?

maestrowork · Oct 1, 2009

Toni Morrison happens to be one of my all-time favorite authors. So what do I know? I should be reading Twilight.

alleycat · Oct 1, 2009

maestrowork said:
Can we think of a US person's body of work that is worthy of a Nobel Prize right now? Nomination, anyone?

One that comes to mind is perhaps Ray Bradbury.

Priene · Oct 1, 2009

maestrowork said:
Can we think of a US person's body of work that is worthy of a Nobel Prize right now? Nomination, anyone?

I'd consider Philip Roth and Thomas Pynchon. And, if they were looking for someone unusual, Bob Dylan.

lkp · Oct 1, 2009

Bob Dylan.

I've read a couple of authors just because they won the Nobel Prize --- Gao Jin and Wislawa Szimborska come to mind. I loved both of them and was so grateful to the Nobel committee for bringing them to my attention. Doris Lessing was an old favourite.

Wayne K · Oct 1, 2009

alleycat said:
One that comes to mind is perhaps Ray Bradbury.

Seconded.

Priene · Oct 1, 2009

I was going to suggest it was high time Italo Calvino won it. Then I googled him and found he's been dead for twenty-four years. I thought he was just a slow writer.

Roger J Carlson · Oct 1, 2009

Two thoughts:

1) It also might represent a prejudice against American authors.

2) The United Nations has never had an American Secretary General. Does that mean America is incapable of producing great diplomats?

mscelina · Oct 1, 2009

I'm sure it has nothing to do with this either.

As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year's literature award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said that writers from the country that produced Philip Roth, John Updike, Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald were "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," dragging down the quality of their work.

"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world, not the United States," he said.

"The US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining."

Although Mr Engdahl insisted later he had been misunderstood by the Associated Press, with whom he conducted the interview, the chances of the two American authors, Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates, thought to be on this year's secret five-person shortlist now look slim

Red-Green · Oct 1, 2009

Stijn Hommes said:
The Nobel Prize can be won by pretty much anyone on the planet, so I don't see how one particular country not winning it for some time is a problem at all.

This. There are nearly 7 billion people on this planet and the majority of them don't even speak English. Why should an American be winning the Nobel more often than every 20 years? To simplify the numbers out of the millions and billions, imagine that you've got 70 incredibly talented writers in a room, each one representative of 100 million people on the planet. Only 3 of them would be Americans.

deserata · Oct 1, 2009

Wayne K said:
alleycat said:

One that comes to mind is perhaps Ray Bradbury.

Click to expand...

Seconded.

Thirded.

lkp · Oct 1, 2009

Calvino certainly deserved one. Thinking of other authors who don't write in English, what about Haruki Murakami?

(and I meant Gao Xingjian above)

America hasn't won a Nobel Prize in Lit since 1993

Otherwise Occupied

Know what you write...

Otherwise Occupied

Out to lunch

Fear the Death Ray

Fear the Death Ray

Still around

Fear the Death Ray

Fear the Death Ray

Still around

Out to lunch

Out to lunch

Moderator In Name Only

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

KoalaKoalaKoala!

writerly painter