SWEDISH ACADEMY SET TO ANNOUNCE 2005 NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE
By Matt Moore
The Associated Press
10/13/05 03:37 EDT
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) – A Syrian poet and a Turkish writer facing
prison appeared to be the favorites of Nobel watchers to win the
2005 Nobel Prize in literature as the world of publishing and writing
waited for the Swedish Academy to announce this year’s winner.
On Thursday, Syrian poet Adonis, whose real name is Ali Ahmad Said,
who fled Lebanon in the 1980s and now lives in Paris, was the best
guess among Nobel watchers, nearly all of whom have no connection to
the academy.
Even online betting Web site Ladbrokes gave him the best odds, 7-4,
just ahead of Americans Joyce Carol Oates (7-1) and Philip Roth,
and Swedish poet Thomas Transtromer (both 9-1).
But the secretive academy, which has not even said if it has picked
a winner, was keeping mum ahead of its 1 p.m. (1100 GMT) announcement
even as some pundits wondered if it would honor a nonfiction writer,
something it last did in 1953 when former British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill won for his historical writings.
Other nonfiction writers mentioned ahead of the prize announcement
include Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski or Belarus’ Svetlana
Alexievich.
Fiction writers, however, remained the top choices, including Turkey’s
Orhan Pamuk, who faces prison after he was charged with insulting
Turkish identity for supporting Armenian claims that they were the
victims of genocide under the Ottoman Turks in 1915.
Other contenders include South Korean poet Ko Un, Canadian author
Margaret Atwood, the Czech Republic’s Milan Kundera, Belgian poet Hugo
Claus, Italian poet Claudio Magris and Indonesian novelist Pramoedya
Ananta Toer.
Others, however, said the academy could look inward, citing Transtromer
and Danish poet Inger Christiansen.
Margaretha Fahlgren, a literary professor at Uppsala University,
said Transtromer, a perennial favorite, would bring the prize back
home to Sweden. The last time Swedes won was in 1974 when Eyvind
Johnson and Harry Martinson shared the prize.
“I believe the prize will be for work of imaginative literature,
of fiction,” Fahlgren told The Associated Press.
Whatever the academy decides, it will likely have two immediate
consequences: increased book sales and controversy.
Last year’s winner, Austrian feminist Elfriede Jelinek, drew such
ire that a member of the academy publicly blasted his colleagues for
picking her.
Knut Ahnlund, 82, who has not played an active role in the academy
since 1996, resigned Tuesday after he wrote in a signed newspaper
article that picking Jelinek had caused “irreparable damage” to the
award’s reputation.
The academy, founded in 1786 by King Gustav III to advance the Swedish
language and its literature, has handed out the literature prize since
1901. Its current members, who serve for life, include several writers
as well as linguists, literary scholars, historians and a lawyer.
If a candidate receives more than half of the votes, the winner is
picked and announced on a Thursday in October.
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