2009 Nobel Prize for Literature

THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE has come a long way since French poet Sully Prudhomme was awarded the inaugural prize in 1901. Albert Camus won it at the age of 43 in 1957. French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio was the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2008. British playwright Harold Pinter won the prize in 2005, the first Briton to win the literature award since V.S. Naipaul won it in 2001, while Orhan Pamuk was awarded the prize in 2006 for his contribution to World Literature with a consistent body of work, both fiction and nonfiction, the first ever Turkish writer to win the prize. And Günter Grass and Derek Walcott got theirs in 1999 and 1992 respectively. J.M. Coetzee got his in 2003.

Despite what we may think, the Nobel Prize is still considered by many to be the highest accolade for writers.

So who will it be for 2009? A couple of candidates easily come to mind: Adonis, Chinua Achebe, Isabel Allende, Margaret Atwood, John Banville, Yves Bonnefoy, Peter Carey, Don DeLillo, Assia Djebar, E.L. Doctorow, Umberto Eco, Carlos Fuentes, Luis Goytisolo (or is Juan Goytisolo?), Peter Handke, F. Sionil Jose, Ismail Kadare, Milan Kundera, Claudio Magris, David Malouf, Javier Marías, Harry Mulisch, Herta Müller, Alice Munro, Les Murray, Michael Ondaatje, Amos Oz, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, Antonio Tabucchi, Tomas Transtromer, Michel Tournier, Barry Unsworth, Mario Vargas Llosa and A.B. Yehoshua. Paul Auster, A.S. Byatt, Anita Desai, Richard Ford, Mary Gordon, Ian McEwan, Haruki Murakami, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Pynchon and William Trevor are also worthy choices. Who else should be shortlisted?

The Swedish Academy will announce the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, October 8, 2009