America too Insular, Ignorant for Nobel in Literature
This year's Nobel Prize in literature will be announced tomorrow, and bets are on as to who the winner will be. Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, dropped a bomb last week when he told the Associated Press, "The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature. The ignorance is restraining."
Perhaps Engdahl misspoke - the Academy has always insisted that nationality is not a consideration. It is true, however, that the last American to win a Nobel Prize in Literature was Toni Morrison in 1993. Whatever the case, Philip Roth and John Updike are not anticipating a call. Instead, bets are on Italian novelist Claudio Magris and Syrian poet Adonis. You've read them, right?
Comments
I think that the overall resentment with Americans is justified however, when David Foster Wallace created an art from writing in his search for pure uttering, the statement is hurtful to me and can be perceived as ignorant.
Well, the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature for 2008 is Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, a Frenchman. One of his themes is the impossibility of dialogue between different cultures. Maybe you should read him…
My point precisely: let’s not disturb the dialogue and encourage isolationism (and I’m not even American)
‘ignorant for Nobel literature’ is misplacement of blame, arrogant and downright hurtful to a form of expression that when done well, knows no boundaries