Who will be the next American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

more talk here for people who are bored and need more momus in their life:

Nobel Prize for Pinter

Herta Müller wins this year.

the anonymity of the winners is getting more and more ridiculous

I got a used copy of The Land of Green Plums a few weeks ago (mainly because it was translated by Michael Hoffmann, whom I like) on a bargain bin for a quid!

This looks like a very obvious '20 years since the Berlin Wall fell' thing.

I think its great that they're less well known -- US authors have a high profile already as it is. If anything I need more works from Asia and Africa.

Vollmann's is just a matter of time. Probably not next though.

I got a used copy of The Land of Green Plums a few weeks ago (mainly because it was translated by Michael Hoffmann, whom I like) on a bargain bin for a quid
Yeah, i bought this remaindered a while ago, again because of Hoffman--now I'll actually get round to reading it.

Barack Obama. Yes, his output is small and perhaps not of obvious literary note, but why should that be an obstacle.

I think Mamet will get it at some point, even if his new plays are Sid Caesar sketches.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/04/william-trevor-nobel-prize-literature

Literary Saloon's annual round-up of runners and riders. Fancies Murakami, Goytisolo, Ko Un.

Of course, last time there appears to have been strong disagreement -- the choice of Jelinek -- they announced on 7 October .....

Misread this as Jandek.

'Authors' who have no chance of getting the prize but are listed at Ladbrokes:
Bob Dylan (10/1) (I'm embarrassed even to mention him in conjunction with the Nobel Prize ...)
Andrea Camilleri (50/1)
Herman Koch (66/1)
Jonathan Littell (100/1)
E.L.James (500/1)

really don't think Murakami will win, those odds look driven by mug bets to me

he's definitely one of the ones odd don't give you a read on. think you're probably right - bit too pop, bit too soon.

Nadas has moved to 5/2. That might be something.

But then I think Lit Saloon is probably right:

Hungarian -- and between Kertész Imre and recent eastern European (Herta Müller) and central European (Jelinek) winners, I just can't see it

Man, if Murakami gets it I will get so angry

I like Murakami a lot, but he doesn't strike me as the kind of author the lit committee usually favors. Feel like a lot of what's kept him in the convo is a sense that East Asia is due for a winner.

I've enjoyed some of his work, but he's a real lightweight using a few tired tropes to look more serious/important than he is

i can see trevor winning. old. revered. heaney won in the 90's if they actually do think about those kinds of things. the country thing.

still can't see anyone other than roth being the winner in u.s.

would love to see alice munro win, but somehow i doubt it. you know, technically, saul bellow could be considered a canadian win. though i'm guessing he became a u.s. citizen?

Munro wrote no novels, therefore she's not serious enough for the committee.

no idea what's embarrassing about dylan that isn't about murakami

prob the harmonica

the empire burles

que jacket

got a lil overexcited there

Murakami looks knocked out loaded on most of his dust jackets.

Mo Yan for the win. Good ol' Mo Yan.

where would we be without him?

For English-speaking audiences, Mo Yan should translate his name and try to package a publicity tour with Gwen Stefani.

Why the sarcasm? I'm really looking forward to checking a couple of his novels..

"where would we be without him?"

i thought you appreciate obscure stuff, or is it just in music?

also, he should tour with No Doubt (Don't Speak=Mo Yan)

hey i like hearing about people i don't know about. which is a lot of nobel winners. i never end up reading any of them though. i DO think its funny/cool that i've never heard of the people who win what is arguably the most prestigious world prize in the world until the day they win it. i've heard of the movie red sorghum at least! that's a start.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/11/gripes-of-roth-nobel-prize-literature

HOW MANY OF YOU GUYS CHECKED OUT THE POETRY OF Tomas Tranströmer AFTER HE WON THE NOBEL LAST YEAR, HUH??? HUH????

yeah, that's what i thought. he does write poetry, right?

and none of the winners are "obscure". not in their home countries anyway.

I did! he's really good!!

Since 1994, though, the Americans have struck out every year. And as the dry spell wears on, the reactions get angrier. So far, Mo Yan has been getting a tiny bit more respect than usual, perhaps because, while Americans are as clueless about Chinese literature as any other, a Chinese winner does at least make the narrative of American decline more historically piquant.

Mo Yan isn't so popular in china, it seems (at least till today that is).

for a body of work - and for what the nobel crowd goes for - roth is the only american i can think of who actually deserves some sort of medal. not that i read all his stuff, but i think he's probably the only "important" american writer alive. and i don't even know why i think that. i just do.

too controversial i guess

(for the noble jury that is)

i've tried to read some nobel winners and...it doesn't go so well. i get sleepy. i always thought i would like patrick white but i've never finished a book of his. i've read very little nobel lit. i look at the books and i just can't commit. i've never even read andre gide. i liked camus and hesse when i was a boy.

i liked some sartre novels when i was in high school. same with hemingway and sinclair lewis.

They gave it to a singer once before. Isaac Bashevis?

lol boooo

lol

Patti Smith is worse than Dylan in terms of being overrated. The worst music that a lot of otherwise intelligent and taste-having people supposedly enjoy

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, October 9, 2023

I’ve discussed this on the controp music thread— loathe Patti Smith, her poetry is awful, her associations with famous homosexuals doesn’t impress me

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, October 9, 2023

her music has resonated so much more with me than Dylan's. I don't hate Dylan's music though

that said, I think the Nobel committee should stick to writers, poets, and playwrights, there are plenty of them who haven't yet been acknowledged

*prose writers

fair enough— I also admit that given her near universal acclaim, that part of this is certainly a me problem. I tried, too. I have the vinyl of Horses somewhere. But after a while, I stopped trying. Should probably sell that record!

Patti Smith will never get the Novel, don't worry!

I've enjoyed a fair amount of her music down through the ages, but first encounter was before she started doing that, when she was a music writer, into thee halcylon with Leroi Jones and Richard Meltzer, but not bothering to seem competitive, just calmly inspecting her object from every angle, moving in and out of metaphor and so on.
I haven't kept up with all of her books over the years, but do have a sense from those I've read that she has kept up, maybe gotten better or deeper while she keeps digging, writing every day, preferably in a near-deserted backstreet coffee shop (black coffee, bread, olive oil, notebook, pen, that's it) Writing about travelling around her room, her books, her neighborhood, the world, her head ,incl. memories that finally have to be disclosed, as other contents under pressure become brief prose poems, as she keeps moving: that's in the logbook of M Train, my copy of which is marked on the back, New Content Within Of course.
Laurie Anderson also seems to have gotten closer to the emotional core of her life in ways she can tell, for instance on the album Heart of a Dog (haven't seen the movie) and the posted trove her Norton Lectures, where audio and video are masterful as ever, text is key.

But those are speculations, suggestions----mostly, from being seized by a single deep body of work in each artist's canon, I nominate Robinson and Ferrante.