The readers here have proven really bad at guessing who will win Nobel Prizes, with my contests involving several fields never having a winner. So I’ll make it easy for you. Just make a SINGLE GUESS about who’s going to get the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, and put it in the comments below. You get only one try and can name only one person.
The Prize itself will be announced at noon BST tomorrow (6 a.m. Chicago time), so I’m closing the contest as of 4 a.m. Chicago time (5 a.m. US Eastern time) tomorrow, and no entries will be valid after that.
There’s got to be a winner for this one, as there are several obvious candidates. But often the Swedish Academy gives the prize to a dark horse, so don’t be so sure.
THE FIRST PERSON TO GUESS CORRECTLY WINS. This means that before you put down your guess, see if anybody else has it before you. If so, choose someone else, because you can’t win
The prize. . . . well, it’s not like winning Powerball. You can have a mint paperback copy of either Why Evolution is True or Faith Versus Fact sent to you (your choice), autographed if you wish (and to whomever you want), and with a cat drawn in it (suggestions for cats considered).
Good luck, and if nobody wins I’m going to be very disappointed.
Salman Rushdie
He would be a great choice, if the Nobel Prize committee has the courage to award it to him.
Rushdie’s certainly the betting markets’ favorite. Im’a go with longshot Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai owing to name recognition: it’s the bottom line on optometrists’ eye charts.
It doesn’t read that way to me. Although, I’m way overdue for an appointment.
I think this too, and wonder if Rushdie will appreciate it, thinking his suffering (and great suffering there was) weighted the scales. (Of course they did.)
Good luck, no one ever gets this guess correct.
Cormac McCarthy
Bad choice; he’s dead. They don’t award prizes posthumously It would have been a good guess if he were still alive, but you’ve used up your choice, unfortunately.
Margaret Atwood
Judith Butler
Are you nuts????
you fell for it!
Well, madness is more Foucault’s thing – but yeah, I wonder sometimes, if it was disrupting the norms of my mind.
I am betting on Salman Rushdie.
Too late, somebody else guessed it.
Karl Ove Knausgaard
you said they like a dark horse, and this would be fun
Damn, I was going to say Rushdie. So, I’ll say Elena Ferrante, … or rather whoever hides behind that name.
I’m reading Midnight’s Children at the moment so let it be Rushdie.
Haruki Murakami (though I hope Rushdie gets it).
I’ll go with the current frontrunner in Can Xue, since no one’s guessed her yet. Rooting for Rushdie, though.
Damn, beat me to it by 10 minutes!! And 13 minutes for Murakami. Margaret Atwood also out, so…..Jon Fosse.
You’re lucky your top two choices were gone!
Indeed!
Damn, beat me to it by 10 minutes!! And 13 minutes for Murakami. Margaret Atwood also out, so…..Jon Fosse.
Congratulations!
We have a winner! Jon fosse it appears it is.
You have redeemed the Commentariat in the eyes of Jerry! Thank you!!!!
Kudos. Make sure you request a cat drawing!
Congratulations!
Thanks to everyone!
Can Xue, female Chinese writer
Can Zue. Thank you Jerry
Ian McEwan (if it was a just world).
Damn, you beat me to it. I hope you win!
Jerry! Karolinska does not present the literature prize: that’s the Swedish academy: https://www.svenskaakademien.se/en (Karolinska awards the physiology/medicine prize)
I’d like Rushdie, too, but knowing the Academy, I don’t believe they have the guts.
Someone more typically “Swedish Academy”-ee would be, lessay, László Krasznahorkai.
Best wishes from Stockholm.
I fixed it; thank you!
I am guessing John Banville because he has not been suggested as yet.
You beat me to it, but I’ve been nominating Banville, a true prose wizard, for years. But since neither of us is on the Swedish Academy, our votes don’t matter.
My first three choices are already taken (the third while I was originally writing this), so I’ll go with David Mitchell (too young, I know).
Gamoneda.
My prediction: Ludila Ulitskaya, despite being a Russian writer. Thank you
Ludmila, of course.
Ludmila!
Cees Nooteboom
Well, Salman Rushdie is on the list. I hope it’s him.
Testing
Jane Gardam
When my comments didn’t go through a few months back I changed my email address to a random “not real” address and my comments started going through as normal. Probably doesn’t help.
Wow, first comment of mine that’s gone through in a while!
I’d guess W.G. Sebald, but I guess he’s dead.
Maybe Jane Gardam?
Liu Cixin (the Three-Body Problem)
Gerald Murnane
Shahrnush Parsipur
Joyce Carol Oates!
I’ll go with Thomas Pynchon, just for the Hell of it. I checked, he’s still alive.
Rushdie would be great, but I’m too late.
I want a cat drawing.
Nice Hail Mary…I haven’t met an honest fellow who actually got through “Gravity’s Rainbow,” let alone someone who liked it. I’ve tried at least three times, making it a few more chapters each time than before (probably 1/2 through)…what a useless slog. Sorry universe, Gravity’s Rainbow is a post-modern scrambled-banana-salad-sandwich. It never got better than the first short chapter.
Agreed.
NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O.
Zadie Smith
My choice. She might be considered too young.
Ted chiang
Kanye West. After all, they gave it to Dylan.
Dylan deserved it; he’s the best American lyricist. Ever. And that includes all the old cats from The Great American Songbook and Tin Pan Alley: George’s brother Ira; Richard Rodgers two partners with the “H” names, Hart and Hammerstein; Johnny Mercer; Sammy Cahn; Irving Berlin; even my own favorite from that era, Cole Porter; pick any name you want; whoever’s in second place isn’t even close.
IMHO. 🙂
Michel Houllebecq
Sci Fi Great Kim Stanley Robinson. Don’t think a sci fi writer has been thus heralded. ‘Bout time. He’s a brilliant climate change imaginer…the best sci-fi writers do see the future in an uncanny way…
Interesting idea, a Nobel to a sci-fi writer. I nominate Ursula Le Guin.
Indeed!
Salman Rushdie!
Jhumpa Lahiri
[ largely because the Nobel committee is reputedly trying to consider more women in the wake of the Swedish Academy sex/misogyny scandal ]
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My guess for Nobel Prize for Literature is Robin DiAngelo! 🙂
But she is hyper-acutely conscious of her White privilege, and surely won’t accept a gong from a bunch of White Nordic elderly folk.
J K Rowling. But I doubt they’d have the balls…….
Norwegian Jon Fosse won the Lit Nobel. I started A New Name a few years ago, but it was too goddy for my taste.
The literature Nobel committee has a reputation for awarding the prize to obscure Scandinavian writers. This award is inline with that reputation. Note that they did give the Nobel to Ivo Andrić (“The Bridge on the Drina”). Note that he beat well known authors including Steinbeck, Tolkien, CS Lewis, Frost, Forster, etc. I have read Ivo Andrić’s work and can highly recommend him. I have read some of the other writers as well.