The Nobel Prize

When Horace Engdahl, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, was asked why some of the greatest writers of the last century never won the Nobel Prize that the Academy administers, he said, “There are often good explanations why writers who later turned out to rank among the most important of the modern age didn’t get the Prize. The most usual reason is that they died too soon, that their work wasn’t sufficiently known when they disappeared.”

The Academy is bound by the terms of the will of Alfred Nobel. That will laid down very clear terms for the grant of the Prize. Among these terms is strict confidentiality. The public is never told who are short-listed for the Prize, although human beings being human, leaks inevitably occur. These leaks, however, are never confirmed nor denied by the Academy.

How is the winner decided? The mechanism for the grant of the Prize for literature is explained on the Nobel website: “The Swedish Academy is responsible for the selection of the Nobel Laureates in Literature and has 18 members. The Nobel Committee for Literature is the working body that evaluates the nominations and presents its recommendations to the Swedish Academy and comprises four to five members.”

Nominations are received from various sources. Engdahl explained, “The writers that we take into account are those nominated by people who are, according to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, authorized to propose candidates, such as members of the Swedish Academy, members of other comparable academies, professors of literature and language, former Nobel Laureates in literature, presidents of writers’ organisations and PEN clubs. The criteria for reducing the original list of about two hundred candidates to the short list of five all have to do with literary quality, nothing else.”

The Academy does not take into account the usual politically correct criteria, such as nationality, political orientation, sexual orientation, gender, race, age, social class, and language. The works are read either in the original or in translation (Swedish, English, French, or German). Since none of the academicians read any of our Philippine languages, it is clear that we need to translate our major works into these languages, if any of our writers are going to have a chance to win the Prize.

Although ethnic origin is not considered in the selection of the winner, we can still ask how many Asian writers have won the Prize. So far, there have been only three Asian writers – Kenzaburo Oe (1994, writing in Japanese), Yasunari Kawabata (1968, Japanese), and Rabindranath Tagore (1913, Bengali) – unless we include the European writers associated with Asia: Doris Lessing (2007, UK, born in Iran), V. S. Naipaul (2001, UK, with Indian blood), and Gao Xingjian (2000, France, born in China).

Does this mean that Asian writers are inferior to their non-Asian counterparts? Not at all. What this means is that Asian writers need first-rate translators into Swedish, English, French, or German in order to be read and considered by the Academy.

You may well ask why we cannot just write in English. If we write in English (as many of our good writers do), however, we compete with those writing in English, such as Lessing, Naipaul, Harold Pinter (2005), Seamus Heaney (1995), Toni Morrison (1993), Derek Walcott (1992), Nadine Gordimer (1991), William Golding (1983), and Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978). We have a bigger chance of winning by writing in any of our own languages, since all of the Nobel laureates write in their own native languages.

Who was Nobel? In the website of the Nobel Prize organization, Nobel (1833-1896) is described as a “scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, author and pacifist,” who was “fluent in several languages, and wrote poetry and drama. Nobel was also very interested in social and peace-related issues, and held views that were considered radical during his time.” Nobel’s various interests explain why the Prize is given in certain categories, including literature.

“WORDS OF THE DAY” (English/Filipino) for next week’s elementary school classes: Jan. 7 Monday: 1. move/crib, 2. wood/costume, 3. wrong/courtesy, 4. iron/cuticle, 5. jelly/crystal, 6. insurance/cue; Jan. 8 Tuesday: 1. gold/cracker, 2. stiff/coupon, 3. twist/coach, 4. island/coutourier, 5. garden/cutter, 6. existence/cubicle; Jan. 9 Wednesday: 1. loud/cowboy, 2. then/counter, 3. use/course, 4. after/court, 5. almost/cymbal, 6. attraction/cyst; Jan. 10 Thursday: 1. near/denim, 2. there/degas, 3. verse/deposit, 4. collar/deadline, 5. serious/debate, 6. advertisement/debit;  Jan. 11 Friday: 1. card/dentista, 2. thick/delata, 3. view/detalyado, 4. circle/dealer, 5. hearing/debut, 6. discovery/dekano. The numbers after the dates indicate grade level. The dates refer to the official calendar for public elementary schools. For definitions of the words in Filipino, consult UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino.