Nobel Prize Disappointment goes to Anne Carson

7 Replies

So the Nobel Prize (good) for Literature (good) goes to a Canadian (good) “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.” That’s all very well… Then the Nobel Committee should create a new category for awarding the Literature Prize to Anne Carson, because if her work isn’t a novel, short story or memoir, it certainly isn’t poetry either. Bold, inventive, playful, new forms – perhaps. But in any way comparable to Kipling, Yeats, Eliot or Walcott? Nope. She has created new (perhaps) forms for contemporary literature, but what I’ve read of hers isn’t poetry. Reuters says she blends verse with (whatever), but I haven’t found any verse of hers, nothing that is immediately word-for-word memorable. There may be some. If there is, it’s not prominent. As The Hindu editorialised, “The Academy has chosen a writer who belongs in no category in particular.”

Oh well. Maybe she got the prize for Icelandic-Canadian dual citizenship? Or translations of Sappho?

So it goes. There’s always next year.

“Is that all there is.” by Onlysilence is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

7 thoughts on “Nobel Prize Disappointment goes to Anne Carson”

  3. Michael Burch's avatarMichael Burch

    Robin, I agree.

    And to be honest, I think my translations of Sappho are worlds better than Carson’s.

    For example:

    Eros harrows my heart:
    wild winds whipping desolate mountains,
    uprooting oaks.
    —Sappho, fragment 42, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

    A short revealing frock?
    It’s just my luck
    your lips were made to mock!
    —Sappho, fragment 155, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
      1. Michael Burch's avatarMichael Burch

        I’m scratching my head to understand how Anne Caron was awarded a Nobel Prize.

        Back to the drawing board.

        Liked by 1 person

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