2011 Nobel Prize

The end of September finds us within days of the Swedish Academy’s announcement of its Nobel Prize winners. The announcement schedule is:

Monday, October 3rd: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Tuesday, October 4th: Nobel Prize in Physics
Wednesday, October 5th: Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Friday, October 7th: Nobel Peace Prize
Monday, October 10th: Nobel Prize in Economics

The announcements can be viewed live. Traditionally the Nobel Prize in Literature does not receive a designated announcement. Instead, the Swedish Academy announces the prize sometime in the first half of October. I am unsure of the reason, but do enjoy the Christmas-morning-feel of waiting for the literature winner.

The following four American writers have been favorites the past few years:

Philip Roth
American Pastoral
Portnoy’s Complaint

Joyce Carol Oates
them
Blonde

Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian
Child of God

Don DeLillo
Underworld
White Noise

These three writers, coupled with the four American writers, comprise a general list of favorites:

Adonis
The Pages of Day and Night
Transformations of the Lover

Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Wizard of the Crow
A Grain of Wheat

Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Norwegian Wood

The Syrian poet Adonis is a perennial favorite and with the Arab Spring gripping Syria, he seems professionally and politically positioned to win this year’s prize. If I were betting (and I am not, however, numerous betting houses throughout Europe offer odds) I would take Adonis. I’d like to see Cormac McCarthy win, but American writers have not fared well since Toni Morrison won in 1993. Here's to a week of Christmas-morning-anticipation.