Odds for SF Writers Getting Nobel Prize in Literature

[Extollager]

Ursula Le Guin and other authors whose names will be familiar to some Chronsfolk.

Nobel Prize in Literature Betting Odds | Bet Online at Ladbrokes.com

I think betting is stupid, so don't take this as meaning I want to be the Chrons bookie or something. Just a curiosity.

 

[GOLLUM]

Betting on the Nobel Prize has been going on for many years now...and as has often been the case in recent years Murakami has been near the front of the pack.

Looking at the list of authors and there are many very fine writers there, I think the most deserving of this prize includes:

Umberto Eco
Javier Marias
A.S. Byatt
Murakami
Salam Rushdie *if only for midnight's Children given the prize is based on a body of work.
Cees Nooteboom
Hilary Mantel
Eduardo Mendoza Garriga
Ismail Kadare
Enrique Vila-Matas

Nice to see Aussies Peter Carey and Tim Winton listed in there. I think Carey could win the prize one day, Winton I'm less sure about.

On an SFF front it would be nice to see LeGuin receive the gong but unlikely.

Posthumous prizes (writers alive when the prize existed) I've always thought should go to at least:

Jorge Lois Borges
Italo Calvino
W.G. Sebald
Angela Carter
Joseph Roth
Stefan Zweig
Frederico De Lorca *only playwright
Julio Cortazar
Clarice Lispector
Alejio Carpentier
Roberto Bolano
Robert Walser
Vladimir Nabokov
Marcel Proust
James Joyce
Leo Tolstoy
Mark Twain

My 2C...

 

[Extollager]

I reckon Tolstoy might have turned it down, if it had been offered tohim.

 

[Sourdust]

It has often gone to writers of fantasy or fabulistic stuff, but someone known for pure SF seems much less likely. The closest we've come is Doris Lessing in 2007, who is, amongst other things, a major SF writer, albeit one few genre readers have read.

 

[Bick]

Jose Saramago won the Nobel. I'd categorise his novel "Blindness" as SF. I enjoyed it. Not sure he's what you'd call a SF writer though.

 

[GOLLUM]

Jose Saramago won the Nobel. I'd categorise his novel "Blindness" as SF. I enjoyed it. Not sure he's what you'd call a SF writer though.

I have all of Saramago's translated works and he's definitely not seen as an SF writer but certainly belonging to the Latin American/Spanish tradition of the fabulist, many of his works having elements of SF/Fantasy/Supernatural.

 

[GOLLUM]

It has often gone to writers of fantasy or fabulistic stuff, but someone known for pure SF seems much less likely. The closest we've come is Doris Lessing in 2007, who is, amongst other things, a major SF writer, albeit one few genre readers have read.

She of 'The Golden Note Book' fame....I agree with you Sourdust and would strongly recommend her five part Canopus In Argos series. They're excellent.

 

[GOLLUM]

I reckon Tolstoy might have turned it down, if it had been offered to him.

The Nobel Prize has certainly had its problems and detractors over the years and as per my earlier post looking at it theoretically purely as a 'major literary prize' there has been some outright howlers with respect to authors who I think should have received the award.

What specifically in your opinion do you think might have been Tolstoy's major objections? I've an idea but would be interested to know your views..