Comment by johansch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johansch | Hacker News Reader

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The "Swedish Academy" who awards these prices are considered somewhat of a joke here in Sweden. Almost as much as we consider the Norwegian Nobel Committee a joke - remember the embarassingly prematurely awarded Obama nobel peace prize - basically only awarded because the Norwegians wanted to frolick with celebs.

They have a very elitist stance - if an author gets popular, no matter how "good" or "bad" he or she is, the prize seemingly cannot be awarded to them.

http://www.today.com/id/15210453/ns/today-today_books/t/nobe...

"A political bias may be hard to prove but there is no doubt the academy favors lesser-known writers to international best sellers. Few outside literary circles had heard of China’s Gao Xingjian, Poland’s Wislawa Szymborska or Kenzaburo Oe of Japan.

Gert Fylking, a Swedish radio journalist taunted the academy for a decade by showing up at the award announcement and yelling 'finally' when Engdahl read the winner’s name. After being barred from entering one year, he showed up the next in disguise.

'The point is that 99 percent of the time, the writer who wins the Nobel Prize is completely unknown to the big masses,' Fylking said."

I don't see how "literary circles" should be criticized for choosing works that they believe have merit in their own field. Nobody was up in arms earlier about the chemistry award going to people who weren't "household names" - other than the Peace prize, the odds that anyone who wins a Nobel this year will have a bigger public profile than Alexievich are slim to none.

> Nobody was up in arms earlier about the chemistry award going to people who weren't "household names"

That's because chemistry papers can only be appreciated by a trained chemist, whereas literature is a popular art form which ought to be appreciatable by anybody. Or any educated person, if you want to dismiss the tastes of the great unwashed (it's interesting how literature is one of the few fields where it's still socially acceptable to be a snob).

Now, maybe the Nobel Prize Committee is doing us a great service by uncovering the works of these great authors whose work has never been appreciated before. But in that case, you'd expect them to become popular after their prizes, and everyone would be going "boy, I sure am glad that the Nobel Prize Committee brought Derek Walcott to my attention or else I'd never have read Omeros". But nope, most of the laureates continue to languish in relative obscurity even after they win the prizes.

Well, it's also a lot easier to validate their choices - you and anyone else who are fluent in English, Russian or a number of other languages can go pick up a copy of Voices from Chernobyl, say, and give it a try. (It's amazing.) You will have a harder time validating the chemists' work.

Because it's a popularity contest. Not much to do with the actual state of literature or the quality of the chosen person. They've basically admitted this many times.

They also have an intense love of European lit.

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