Predicting the Nobel

Last year I predicted that Peruvian poet Carmen Ollé would be the 2009 Nobel laureate in literature. Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller won instead. According to my calculations, a woman writer in Spanish was the likely choice, and a poet had not been awarded the prize since Wislawa Szymborska was recognized in 1996.

According to Ian Crouch in the New Yorker’s book blog, the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer is the current betting favorite at four to one. The Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami trails at seven to one. The leading English-language candidates are Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, and Thomas Pynchon, tied at eighteen to one.

I stand by my earlier prediction that a Spanish-language writer is overdue for the Nobel. Mexico’s Octavio Paz was the last award-winner from the Spanish-speaking world, in 1990, succeeding Camilo José Cela of Spain by a year. Both Paz and Cela were in their seventies when they won the prize and had written their masterpieces decades earlier.

A British oddsmaker lists the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa as the leading Spanish-language candidate at odds of twenty-five to one. Vargas Llosa, however, is a man of the Right, which pretty nearly disqualifies him from consideration. [Update: Right on target, moron.—DGM] Nicaraguan liberation theologian Ernesto Cardinal [see below] and Spanish novelist Luis Goytisolo Gay are next at thirty to one.

Since the Nobel committee did its duty last year by picking a woman, they are off the hook this year. My guess is that a man will get the prize. If the winner is to be a poet from South America, though, my prediction is Juan Gelman of Argentina. He is not given any chance at all by the Ladbrokes oddsmakers, whose bottom choice is Bob Dylan at one hundred fifty to one.

Two years ago Gelman captured the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious literary award in the Spanish-speaking world. He has also involved himself in Left activism. He belonged to Movimiento Peronista Montonero, a political affiliation that ended in his exile to Italy in 1976. (He returned to Argentina in 1988.) He is also a Jewish writer who fits the Left’s preferred image of the Jew—a victim of the Right. His son and pregnant daughter-in-law were among the “disappeared.” After the military coup that overthrew Isabel Perón in 1976, they were taken into custody and executed. Nearly a quarter century later, Gelman tracked down his granddaughter in Uruguay. She had been given to a pro-government family.

Gelman’s poetry makes all the correct “Noises”:

those steps: are they looking for him?
that car: is it stopping at his door?
those men in the street: are they after him?
there are various noises in the night

day breaks upon those noises
nobody detains the sun
nobody detains the rooster’s crow
nobody detains the day

there will be nights and days although he won’t see them
nobody detains the revolution
nothing detains the revolution
there are various noises in the night

those steps: are they looking for him?
that car: is it stopping at his door?
those men in the street: are they after him?
there are various noises in the night

day breaks upon these noises
nobody detains the day
nobody detains the sun
nobody detains the rooster’s crowThis year the Nobel Prize in literature will go to Juan Gelman. Who will take my bet?

Update, I: M. A. Orthofer of the Literary Saloon (to which I typically do not link because of its persistent and sloppy anti-Israel bias) disagrees with my prediction, because Juan Gelman “simply doesn’t have enough of an international presence, especially compared to the other poets considered contenders.” As if Elfriede Jelinek (2004’s winner) or J. M. G. Le Clézio (2008’s) were household names. Orthofer is also convinced that my prediction is “very tongue in cheek,” and remarks that its humor might be more respectable if I spelled the name of Ernesto Cardenal Martínez correctly. I confess that I negligently copied and pasted the name from the Ladbrokes site; my library is sadly deficient in liberation theologians; not that I miss them overmuch. The only thing humorous is that anyone would consider a liberation theologian for a Nobel Prize in anything. Still, I can assure Orthofer and readers of A Commonplace Blog that my prediction is not intended to be tongue in cheek, “very” or otherwise.

Update, II: As of Tuesday morning the 5th, the Kenyan postcolonialist Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a self-described literary and social activist (of the Marxist-Leninist variety), is the current betting favorite. (I can easily imagine the Nobel committee’s giving him the award, if only to bite their thumb at Dinesh D’Souza.) Cormac McCarthy has surged into second place, while Tranströmer has fallen back. Ernesto Cardinal [sic] is no better than the fifth most favored Spanish-language writer (not really, in his case). The Australian novelist Gerald Murnane has come from nowhere to surge into contention. If he were to win, and if his Nobel Prize were to create new readers of his work (like me), then the award might actually have served a purpose other than to ratify the international Left’s claim to exclusive ownership of world literature.

Update, III: Who says that literary critics have no influence? As of 5:00 EST on the afternoon of October 5th, Juan Gelman has climbed to within striking distance of the leaders in the betting, currently getting odds of fifteen to one. He now leads the early favorite Tomas Tranströmer. I almost hope he does not win, despite my prediction that he will. I don’t want that prediction to become my only claim to fame! In January, tongue planted very much in cheek, I prophesied that an American would win the Nobel Prize in literature. Go, McCarthy! Go, Roth!