In the last three years, Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s name was thrown around when the Nobel Prize date was announced. The name came up more due to bookmaker Ladbrokes' yearly betting list, which usually has the top 10 contenders, at least according to the betting world, for the most coveted prize in literature. Of course, the constant clamour of the author's fans adds to the attention every year.
This year too, Murakami’s name has cropped up in the top 10 of Ladbrokes' list. Touted as a favourite by Ladbrokes, he is only upstaged by Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiong'o.
American Don DeLillo too has jumped up in the stakes, right behind Syrian poet Adunis. Another favourite, Philip Roth, is currently in the fifth position.
Murakami or DeLillo not winning the Nobel until now is not surprising. After all, this is the prize that had famously ignored Tolstoy, Ibsen, James Joyce, Henry James and even Cormac Mc Carthy, not to mention the countless non-English writers who have been overlooked.
American fans have long accused the Prize of ignoring their writers, when in fact, their country has the second highest number of laureates. If the Prize could be accused of anything, it could be Anglo- and Euro-centricism. For not all great writing is in English or originates in France, which has the most number of laureates.
But, if a group that has consistently been ignored, it is women. In the 115 years since its inception, the Nobel Prize in Literature has gone to just 14 women. It is still a higher number of women awardees than any other Nobel Prize has had so far.
This year too, no woman writer’s name is in the reckoning, even at Ladbrokes, the only exception being Joyce Carol Oates. She too isn’t in the top 10. Even Bob Dylan beat her there, and he isn’t even primarily a writer. Last year’s award to >Svetlana Alexeivich was a shock win, and perhaps more such wins are needed to even the score.
>#NobelFacts 14 women have been awarded the >#NobelPrize in Literature between 1901 and 2015: >pic.twitter.com/6koJB1XXPN
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) >October 13, 2016
Nobel Prize winners 2016
The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi “for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy.” The professor is currently at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. >Read more.
This year, the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for “theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.” One half of the prize goes to Prof. Thouless and the rest to Prof. Haldane and Prof. Kosterlitz. >Read more.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2016 has been awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa for developing molecular machines. >Read more.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 has been awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end his country's 50-year civil war. >Read more | >Making sense of Santos winning Peace Nobel
British-born Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom of Finland won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their contributions to contract theory, shedding light on how contracts help people deal with conflicting interests. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their theories “are valuable to the understanding of real-life contracts and institutions, as well as potential pitfalls in contract design.” >Read more.
