Economics Nobel Prize

[Archaea]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218759,00.html

Notable that every Nobel prize this year goes to an American.

[MikeWaters]

....and zero Canadians.

[SeattleUte]

Nowadays Nobel Prize for literature only goes to non-Americans. If you're Anglo-Saxon/Western European you have to be an immigrant from the third-world, a lefty woman, or the author of a lot of anti-American stuff like that Irish playwrite last year.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Nowadays Nobel Prize for literature only goes to non-Americans. If you're Anglo-Saxon/Western European you have to be an immigrant from the third-world, a lefty woman, or the author of a lot of anti-American stuff like that Irish playwrite last year.

So, it's not a real award.

It's kinda like the Olympics, when we win track, swimming, and some other stuff, it doesn't matter if Cuba wins pint sized midget wrestling or artistic gymnastics, because nobody watches that stuff anyway.

[MikeWaters]

it seems like most winners of literature are people Americans have never heard of, much less read.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

it seems like most winners of literature are people Americans have never heard of, much less read.

The Nobel Prize for literature has become kind of a joke, in my opinion. I have to amend what I wrote, though. If you're a black woman American who writes about white oppression you can still win it, e.g., Toni Morrison. I find Toni Morrison unreadable. You'll never see our greatest novelists like Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy or John Updike come close.

The award does serve a useful purpose. As Mike notes, the winners are often unheard of here. So it's a way to get to know authors who write in other languages; for example, Gabriel Garcia Marques or that Egyptian novelist Mafouz (sp?) are very good novelists virtually unknown here until they won the award.