Nobel Prize For Literature Will Be Announced October 11th

Posted on October 8, 2007

The Swedish Academy announced that it will name the Nobel Literature Prize winner on October 11th. After Turkish author Orhan Pamuk's surprise win last year, oddsmakers are predicting that the winner will be someone more familiar to the public.

The Swedish Academy said on Friday it will announce the 2007 Nobel Laureate in Literature on October 11, with odds-makers tipping well-tried names to take a prize that often goes to the obscure or controversial. Bookmaker Ladbrokes, which takes bets on the literary world's most prestigious award, has Italian novelist and essayist Claudio Magris as its favorite, followed by Australian "bush" poet Les Murray and American novelist Philip Roth. Swedish poet Thomas Transtromer lies fourth on the list with Syrian-Lebanese poet Adonis in fifth.
Barring Murray, all have been suggested as possible winners in years past. The short list for the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.54 million) prize is closely guarded and the winner is often a surprise -- sometimes obscure enough to send reporters and literary scholars scurrying to reference books or the Internet. But Ladbrokes has called it right for three years running with the leader in its wagering winning the Nobel, including last year's winner, Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. Pamuk was seen as a politically-charged choice in a year that saw him charged with violating a hotly debated law prohibiting insults to "Turkishness."
The Swedish Academy says politics played no role. "It was a decision taken on purely literary grounds. There is never a political aim in the Academy's decision," Academy head Horace Engdahl told Reuters in an e-mail interview this week. "There is sometimes a political effect, but in that case it is unintended and usually not calculable in advance."

It is tradition that the Academy announces all the other Nobel Prize dates well in advance, while the Literary Prize is only announced one week in advance. Which is really odd, if you think about it. Why do the chemists, physicists and politicians know the date well in advance, while the poets and writers are kept in the dark? It's all very mysterious.