2007 Nobel Prize for Literature

BRITISH PLAYWRIGHT Harold Pinter won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Briton to win the literature award since V.S. Naipaul won it in 2001, while Orhan Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006 for his contribution to World Literature with a consistent body of work, both fiction and nonfiction. And Günter Grass got it in 1999. J.M. Coetzee got his in 2003.

Despite what we think, the Nobel Prize is considered by many to be the highest accolade for writers. So who will it be for 2007? A couple of candidates easily come to mind: Chinua Achebe, Margaret Atwood, John Banville, Yves Bonnefoy, Peter Carey, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Umberto Eco, Carlos Fuentes, Peter Handke, F. Sionil Jose, Milan Kundera, Doris Lessing, Claudio Magris, David Malouf, Javier Marías, Harry Mulisch, Alice Munro, Les Murray, Michael Ondaatje, Amos Oz, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, Tomas Transtromer, Michel Tournier, Barry Unsworth, John Updike, Mario Vargas Llosa and A.B. Yehoshua. Who else should be shortlisted?

Paul Auster, A.S. Byatt, Anita Desai, Mary Gordon, Ian McEwan, Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami, Joyce Carol Oates and William Trevor are also worthy choices.

The 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced on Thursday, October 11, 2007