But Simple Passion, her lightly fictionalized account of a tumultuous, obsessive affair she had with an Eastern European businessman in the early ’90s, is claustrophobic. Works such as The Years, the closest thing to a complete memoir she has written, explode with perspective and voice. She may be currently best known for Happening, a searing account of an illegal abortion she had as a university student in France in 1963, which has gained new prominence and resonance after a recent film adaptation and the Dobbs decision. Her works mine her personal experience and make up “a total novel of life,” as Jamie Hood wrote recently. She is in many ways a pioneer of the autofiction that Karl Ove Knausgaard and Rachel Cusk have brought to recent prominence. It is perhaps more difficult to select just one work from Ernaux than from any other writer on this list. Simple Passion, by Annie Ernaux, translated by Tanya Leslie Through voices and narratives that are constantly interrupting and interfering with one another, Fosse captures the grief-and love-that can never be put into words. Like Faulkner’s best works, Aliss at the Fire is about the inescapability of the past and how history reverberates mysteriously across generations. But in Aliss at the Fire, he’s more reminiscent of William Faulkner-who, unlike Ibsen, won the Nobel Prize. Fosse is often compared to Henrik Ibsen, since he is best known as a playwright and is very depressing. The narrative quickly shatters, moving backwards and forwards across generations-spanning multiple family tragedies, all involving the fjord and the house that Signe still lives in. She is quickly transported back to 23 years earlier, when her husband, Asle, disappeared from the same spot. The book begins in 2002 with Signe, an elderly woman, lying on a bench, gazing out at the water. Unfolding in what basically amounts to one long, swirling sentence, the novel is a classic Scandinavian story-which is to say, it is about a family and a fjord. The five books below, one from each of these authors, should make that case abundantly clear.Īliss at the Fire, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searlsĭreamlike is a word often applied to Fosse, a Norwegian novelist and playwright, and in Aliss at the Fire, he is at his most surreal and circuitous.
And yet, the best argument for the Nobel is as a celebration of worthy and neglected works of global literature, many of which fly below the radar in the United States. There is something a little foolish about caring what a stuffy group of Swedes decides to canonize.
But their names keep coming up for a reason: They have, over the past several decades, built up an astonishing and influential body of work. The following authors have never won the prize, and they probably won’t win this year. Last year’s winner, Abdulrazak Gurnah, wasn’t even listed as a contender other writers, such as the Syrian poet Adunis and the American Twitter user Joyce Carol Oates, have spent years as leading possibilities before disappearing from the running. (Only living authors are eligible, meaning that unfortunately, the recently deceased Javier Marías and Hilary Mantel are no longer in contention.) As I write this, the French novelist Pierre Michon is the front-runner, according to the bookies-but that hardly means anything. When this year’s winner is announced on October 6, the laureate will most likely be a surprise. Despite recent scandals, controversy, and silliness (here, I mean the Dylan win), the Nobel has maintained its place as not just the world’s most important literary award, but its most important cultural one. And the other is that it remains the single best global survey of literature. One is that it’s a fun, low-stakes way to engage with the literary world, which most people take way too seriously. I have gotten it spectacularly wrong several times, however-including in 2016, when I said that Bob Dylan would definitely not win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he did days later.ĭespite this track record, I continue to make predictions about the prize. I should know: For the past seven years, I’ve tried to guess the winner based on odds from the British sportsbook Ladbrokes and never once gotten it right. Predicting the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature is a fool’s errand.
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