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Oct 8

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And the Nobel in Literature goes to…

01-svetlana-aleksijevitj

This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature was announced today at 1:00pm CAT. The Swedish prize was awarded to Svetlana Alexievich. Alexievich is a Belarusian author and investigative journalist who has written many interview-based documentary books depicting life and war in the Soviet Union. Many in the top literary circles were predicting that she would win the award. Congratulations to Ms. Alexievich.

Nominations to the Nobel Prize in Literature are made by a “qualified persons only.” These qualified people include members of the Swedish Academy, Professors of literature and linguistics at universities and college, previous Nobel Laureates in literature, Presidents of literary societies. The process of selection takes a year starting with initial invitation letters to 600-700 individuals. A long list of 10-15 candidates (not revealed to the public) is selected in April then a final list of 5 nominees are selected in May. From June-August the committee members read the works of the final candidates. The names of the nominees are not revealed until 50 years after the prize year.

To check out more information about the prize you can go to their website.

The past 10 winners include:
Patrick Modiano (2014)
Alice Munro (2013)
Mo Yan (2012)
Tomas Tranströmer (2011)
Mario Vargas Llosa (2010)
Herta Müller (2009)
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (2008)
Doris Lessing (2007)
Orhan Pamuk (2006)
Harold Pinter (2005)

I have not read any of her books but I look forward to doing so. I was hoping for a Murakami win but realized that it was a long shot.

What do you think of this year’s winner? Have you read any of her books? Which were your favorites? Least favorites?