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Nobel Grapes Are Sour For Americans

A recent statement by the permanent secretary of the

committee of the Swedish Academy that awards the globally
coveted Nobel Prize for Literature has created a furore in the
American press. In his controversial pronouncement, Mr
Horace Engdahl said about American writers that they were
not up to Nobel standards. He continued, “ The U.S. is too
isolated,too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t
really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That
ignorance is restraining.”

Mr Engdahl’s statement also reiterates his view that world

literature continues to be Euro-centric. This makes the Anglo-
American press bristle. For, the publishing corporates in the
United States and the United Kingdom today enjoy an
unprecedented global hegemony through an increasing
acceptance of English as a second language the world over.

So what is all this fuss really about?

I sit here in India, what the west describes with disdain as the
‘Third World’, wondering about the chances of an Indian
winning the distantly shining Nobel Prize for Literature. The
last Indian to win it was Rabindranath Tagore and that was
more than ninety years ago. As far as the cosmopolitanism of
the Swedish Academy goes, it still does not extend to the rich,
multilingual landscape of South Asia whose literary traditions
go deeper than Europe’s achievements before the Dark Age..

Do I assume that Mr Engdahl’s open-minded Sweden produces

more translations from Indian languages than Anglo-American
publishers do? As far as I know, the Swedes still have to rely
on English translations to form their view of world literature.
Yet, judging by the list of third world winners of the Nobel
Prize of Literature, I suspect political rather than literary
considerations have influenced the Swedish Academy’s
choices.

It is a kind of global power that the politically neutral, small

European country Sweden enjoys in the form of the Swedish
Academy. They imagine it to be the Mount Parnassus of the
whole civilized world from whose lofty heights they can view
even American writers as pygmies. Does the third world writer
have any chance to be noticed in Sweden?

Big awards and prizes play some role in spot-lighting the work
of a writer. In India the Jnanapeeth Award, the Sahitya
Akademi Award, and the Saraswati Samman are considered
nationally prestigious. However their award committees or
juries, or secretaries could be as prejudiced and arrogant as
the secretary and the awards committee of the Swedish
Academy.

Luckily for them, their proceedings are shrouded in secrecy.

For instance, we only hear of their award winners and not the
short list from which the awardee is picked each year. We also
hear malicious gossip about lobbying and rumours about
cliques in committees.

Writers and artists are seldom the noblest members of a

society. They bitch, bicker, and back-stab their rivals and are
not ashamed of promoting themselves at the cost of pure
values.

The once glorified triumvirate of our national Akademis ---

given an autonomous status by an act of parliament--- face
rapid erosion of their image in the eyes of the writers, fine
artists, and performing artists they are supposed to represent
and encourage. They have come to represent and celebrate
mediocrity. They seldom honour the young and the dynamic.
Their meetings have become meaningless. Their members do
not shy from manipulative politics and their presidential
elections vie with our larger political culture in playing dirty
games with no rules.

It has been said that the Nobel Prize committee of the Swedish
Academy has a geriatric domination that defeats its own
purpose. They do not reflect the opinions of the younger
generation of Swedish writers and book lovers. The huge sum
of money that goes with the Nobel Prize is what makes it
prestigious in the eyes of the public and they are willing to
overlook the vagaries of the selection process and the
competence of the jury that awards the prize.

By and large, this applies to all prizes and awards. All of us

could do with one for the financial relief a prize or an award
bring. However, we should never delude ourselves that winning
those coveted medals, plaques, and cheques proves our real
worth as writers.

-----Dilip Chitre