Nobel Prize 2024 | Non-Western work could be rewarded, experts say

(Stockholm) Overwhelmingly dominated by European and North American authors, the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature, awarded Thursday, could reward a writer from a non-Western culture, according to experts.

Chinese author Can Xue frequently returns among the favorites of literary critics.

Avant-garde and compared to Kafka for the atmosphere both unreal and dark which permeates his novels and short stories, his experimental style transforms reality into a fantastic and absurd universe.

She has followed her own working method for 30 years: she barely rereads herself, and even less modifies her texts, which she always writes with paper and pen.

This year, “the choice of the winner will take the cultural elite on the wrong foot”, predicts Björn Wiman, the head of the cultural department of the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

Non-European language region

In 2021, the committee opted for the British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, born in Zanzibar and who explores the torments of exile and anti-colonialism.

The committee regularly likes to surprise, underlines Mr. Wiman who imagines that a Mexican or Argentine novelist or an African writer could logically win.

“I believe it will be a woman from a non-European linguistic region,” he bets.

The journalist’s heart, however, beats for Salman Rushdie, more than ever a strong symbol of freedom of expression after being stabbed in 2022 and who is told in The Knifepublished in April.

“But we will blame [à l’Académie] to have chosen a man again in the second half of life,” notes Björn Wiman.

Last year, the prize was awarded to Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse.

Since its creation, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been very “Eurocentric” and masculine: out of a total of 120 laureates, only 17 women have won the prize. And a minority of award-winning authors use languages ​​spoken in Asia, Africa or the Middle East, outside the English, French, Scandinavian, German, Slavic, Spanish or Italian domains.

Only one Arabic-speaking author was distinguished – Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian, in 1988 – compared to 16 French-speaking authors.

Original language

China has a “very vast literature”, but this is not reflected in the history of the Nobel, notes Carin Franzén, professor of literature at Stockholm University.

The last time a Chinese writer received the prize was in 2012, when novelist Mo Yan was crowned.

For Victor Malm, head of the daily cultural department ExpressenCaribbean author Jamaica Kincaid will win this year. Born in Antigua and Barbuda, she lives in the United States and writes in English.

“I find it hard to believe that the name of a Hindi writer will suddenly appear. No one at the Academy speaks Hindi. How could they credibly express themselves on the subject? », he judges, believing that the members of the Academy depend too much on translations.

The Academy has always consulted literature experts and, since 2021, this approach has become systematized in languages ​​not mastered by its members.

“It is of course not the same as being able to read in the original language,” says Lina Kalmteg, literary journalist at Swedish Public Radio (SR). It is very rare that the competing writers “are not translated into Swedish at all,” she observes.

Historically, Western culture was considered superior, notes Rasmus Landström, literary critic for the Swedish daily Aftonbladet : it was accepted at the time, but “I think that is no longer the case today,” he says.

The jury’s deliberations were kept secret for 50 years, but as they were made public, we realized that this question had always been “widely debated”, he adds.

No Russian writer?

In the turmoil after the 2018 sex scandal, the Academy is looking for new life.

“It would therefore be interesting [pour elle] to open up to a non-European perspective,” argues M^me Franzén, whose favorite is the Canadian poet Anne Carson.

The editor-in-chief of culture Göteborgs-Posten Johan Hilton is banking on a writer from central or eastern Europe. “France, the United States and the United Kingdom have been winners on numerous occasions in recent years,” he notes.

But out of the question of rewarding a Russian, even a personality critical of the regime, according to him. He believes that “it is politically impossible”, unlike Victor Malm for whom a detractor of the Russian regime could not serve the Kremlin’s propaganda.

As every year, the names of other Nobel Prize winners, regularly cited, circulate: the Hungarian Laszlo Krasznahorkai, the Romanian Mircea Cărtărescu, the Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the Australian Gerald Murnane and the Japanese Haruki Murakami.

The suspense will be lifted at 7 a.m. (Eastern time) when the Swedish Academy reveals the identity of the winner of the prize, worth 11 million Swedish crowns (more than 1,449,000 Canadian dollars).