Everybody knows Alfred Nobel and everybody knows the Nobel Prize. What not everybody knows is maybe that today at 13:00 the Swedish Academy will be actually handing two Nobel Prizes in Literature (from now on: NPL) not only one. Let us have a look at NPL and some facts about it. Of course from the Votramos perspective
There will be two Nobel Prizes in Literature this year because of a series of scandals which struck the Swedish Academy last year. The scandals meant that no NPL was handed out last year. People have different opinions on whether there should be one or two NPLs this year. Some people claim that it is about highlighting one specific person every year (not two) whereas some others believe that this is about highlighting important literary works not about the writers themselves
Among the sevens Arabs who won the Nobel Prize only one of them won the NPL and that was Naguib Mahfuz in 1988 who, according the the Swedish Academy, "has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind". Mahfuz had been writing for more than 50 years when he won the Prize. He was 77 years old at that time.
Born in Arabia, you are Arab. That is how I see it. And for that reason I want to say that there was actually another Arab winner of the NPL and that was Albert Camus in 1957. Camus was born in Algeria to French parents. He grew up in Algeria and he had a very special relationship to Algeria. His most important novels were inspired from his time in Algeria, and highlighted real problems which residents of the colonised countries faced with the coloniser, France. Unlike Mahfuz who won the NPL when he was quite old, Camus was the second youngest recipient of the NPL throughout history. Camus was just 44 when he won it. The youngest winner of NPL was the English writer Rudyard Kipling who won it at the age of 41
Well, both Naguib Mahfuz and Albert Camus deserve a special text for them and about them. I will try to do that sometime in th future inshAllah
Now, back to 2019. There are some good candidates for this year and last year's NPL. One of them is American novelist and professor Jamaica Kincaid who said that
they should give the prize to everyone who wants it [...] I don't want it [...] because it is not water or oxygen
This actually reminds me of Bob Dylan who won the NPL in 2016. He didn't care about it and even though he claimed that he felt honoured, it was actually quite clear that he didn't see it as a big thing. It took more than a year for him to finally accept to come to Stockholm and receive the Prize. Dylan has a troubled relationship to his own fame just like many other celebrities. Not everyone likes to be famous
Finally, according to the Swedish Academy, there are three important things for writers to think about if they want to ever win the NPL. These factors are
Do not limit yourself by any time and place
Let your text be philosophical
Write so honestly about your hard life if you had one
There will be two Nobel Prizes in Literature this year because of a series of scandals which struck the Swedish Academy last year. The scandals meant that no NPL was handed out last year. People have different opinions on whether there should be one or two NPLs this year. Some people claim that it is about highlighting one specific person every year (not two) whereas some others believe that this is about highlighting important literary works not about the writers themselves
Among the sevens Arabs who won the Nobel Prize only one of them won the NPL and that was Naguib Mahfuz in 1988 who, according the the Swedish Academy, "has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind". Mahfuz had been writing for more than 50 years when he won the Prize. He was 77 years old at that time.
Born in Arabia, you are Arab. That is how I see it. And for that reason I want to say that there was actually another Arab winner of the NPL and that was Albert Camus in 1957. Camus was born in Algeria to French parents. He grew up in Algeria and he had a very special relationship to Algeria. His most important novels were inspired from his time in Algeria, and highlighted real problems which residents of the colonised countries faced with the coloniser, France. Unlike Mahfuz who won the NPL when he was quite old, Camus was the second youngest recipient of the NPL throughout history. Camus was just 44 when he won it. The youngest winner of NPL was the English writer Rudyard Kipling who won it at the age of 41
Well, both Naguib Mahfuz and Albert Camus deserve a special text for them and about them. I will try to do that sometime in th future inshAllah
Now, back to 2019. There are some good candidates for this year and last year's NPL. One of them is American novelist and professor Jamaica Kincaid who said that
they should give the prize to everyone who wants it [...] I don't want it [...] because it is not water or oxygen
This actually reminds me of Bob Dylan who won the NPL in 2016. He didn't care about it and even though he claimed that he felt honoured, it was actually quite clear that he didn't see it as a big thing. It took more than a year for him to finally accept to come to Stockholm and receive the Prize. Dylan has a troubled relationship to his own fame just like many other celebrities. Not everyone likes to be famous
Finally, according to the Swedish Academy, there are three important things for writers to think about if they want to ever win the NPL. These factors are
Do not limit yourself by any time and place
Let your text be philosophical
Write so honestly about your hard life if you had one