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2018 Nobel Prize in Literature

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2018 Nobel Prize in Literature
Olga Tokarczuk
"for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life."
Date
  • 10 October 2019 (2019-10-10)
    (announcement)
  • 10 December 2019
    (ceremony)
LocationStockholm, Sweden
Presented bySwedish Academy
First awarded1901
WebsiteOfficial website
← 2017 · Nobel Prize in Literature · 2019 →

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk (born 1962) "for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life."[1] The prize was announced the following year by the Swedish Academy on 10 October 2019.[2] Tokarczuk is the fifth Nobel laureate in Literature from Poland writing in Polish, after the poet Wisława Szymborska in 1996, and Czesław Miłosz in 1980.

Laureate

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Main article: Olga Tokarczuk

Olga Tokarczuk is inspired by maps and a perspective from above, which tends to make her microcosmos a mirror of macrocosmos. She constructs her novels in a tension between cultural opposites: nature versus culture, reason versus madness, male versus female, home versus alienation. Her magnum opus so far is the historical novel Ksiegi Jakubowe ("The Books of Jacob", 2014), portraying the 18th-century mystic and sect leader Jacob Frank. The work also gives us a remarkably rich panorama of an almost neglected chapter in European history. Among her other significant novels include Prawiek i inne czasy ("Primeval and Other Times", 1997), Bieguni ("Flights", 2007), and Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych ("Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead", 2009).[3]

Reactions

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Personal reactions

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Tokarczuk received the news from the Swedish Academy while driving on a book tour in Germany for the launch the German version of The Books of Jacob. Interviewed by Adam Smith, Chief Scientific Officer of Nobel Media, on 10 October 2019, asking how she reacted to the news of earning the Nobel Prize in Literature, she responded:

"Funny situation because I am, as I told you, on the road. We are driving in Germany, so they called me from Nobel Academy just 15 minutes before and... and then I was so surprised, and I'm still very surprised. And I cannot find out, you know... the right words, how to express, and … which is very new for me, that there are thousands of telephones calls and texts. So I would like to reach a stable place somewhere, a hotel or whatever, and, yeah, just to take my time to... for reaction."[4]

During Smith's phone call, she spoke of the importance of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature as a symbol of hope for those worried about the "crisis in democracy" she sees facing central Europe. She also expressed her happiness winning alongside the controversial Austrian author Peter Handke.[4]

International reactions

[edit]
Olga Tokarczuk and her translator Jennifer Croft with Lisa Appignanesi, Chair of the judges for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize.

The choice of Olga Tokarczuk as Nobel Prize Laureate was generally well received. "The Swedish Academy has made many mistakes in recent years", wrote Claire Armitstead, "but in the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, it has found not only a fine winner but a culturally important one."[5] Jennifer Croft, who translated Tokarczuk's novel Flights expressed her delight, saying "I'm so thrilled for Olga and so excited for all the new readers who are bound to discover her delicate, powerful, beautifully nuanced novels and short stories thanks to the prize."[6][7]

In Poland, there was a division after Tokarczuk's win.[8] Tokarczuk outraged rightwing patriots by saying that, contrary to its self-image as a plucky survivor of oppression, Poland itself had committed "horrendous acts" of colonisation at times in its history. Henceforth, she was branded a targowiczanin (traitor) and vilified by right-wing nationalists, among them the national-conservative political party Law and Justice. Krystyna Sliwinska, a Law and Justice councilwoman in Kłodzko, once questioned Tokarczuk's view of Polish history saying: "Who invented the history of Poland that you question? What are those false facts? Ms. Tokarczuk speaks on behalf of all Poles as 'we', but what right does she have to generalize like that? This false message is translated into foreign languages and goes out into the world and the awards follow."[8] Despite the backlash, some politicians welcomed happily the news and celebrated the announcement. Jacek Czaputowicz, Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs, congratulated her: "We sincerely congratulate Ms. Olga Tokarczuk, an unquestioned ambassador of Polish culture."[9]

Award ceremony

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Author Olga Tokarczuk at the presentation of the Polish movie Spoor at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.

Nobel lecture

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In her Nobel lecture The Tender Narrator, delivered at the Swedish Academy on 7 December 2019,[10] Olga Tokarczuk spoke about her belief in the power of literature in a world of information overload and divisive narratives.[11] According to her, literature is

"built on tenderness toward any being other than ourselves... Literature is one of the few spheres that try to keep us close to the hard facts of the world, because by its very nature it is always psychological, because it focuses on the internal reasoning and motives of the characters, reveals their otherwise inaccessible experience to another person, or simply provokes the reader into a psychological interpretation of their conduct. Only literature is capable of letting us go deep into the life of another being, understand their reasons, share their emotions and experience their fate."[10]

The lecture was named "Emerging Europe's Artistic Achievement 2020" by the organization Emerging Europe.[12]

Prize presentation

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At the prize presentation on 10 December 2019, Per Wästberg, member of the Swedish Academy, said of Tokarczuk:

"Her fusion of intensive embodiment and ephemeral unreality, intimate observation and mythological obsession, make her one of our time's most original prose writers, with new ways of viewing reality. She is a virtuoso of instant portraiture, capturing characters in the act of escaping daily life. She writes of what no one else does: "the world's excruciating strangeness". "Her prose – drastic, rich in ideas – is in nomadic movement throughout her fifteen or so books. Her villages are centres of the universe, the place a protagonist, its singular destinies woven into a fresco of fable and myth."[13]

Banquet speech

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According to Tokarczuk in her banquet speech, she did not know how the Nobel celebrations are being held annually at Stockholm. Wanting to learn something about the event, she came upon Björn Runge's film The Wife which features the story of an American novelist's wife who questions her life choices and who is later revealed to be behind her husband's Nobel Prize success, being the true author of his acclaimed novels. Tokarczuk immediately clarifies, causing her audience to laugh, that her winning was nothing similar to the film by saying: "No, no, please don't worry – I can solemnly declare that I wrote all my own books myself."[14] Though, she agrees that the laureates' success are greatly rooted in the people who supported, helped and inspired them. "The movie demonstrates a particular phenomenon," she said "which is that prizes treat their laureates as individuals, by ascribing one-hundred-percent of the merit to them. When in fact there are always lots of other people behind their success – those who support, help and inspire."[14][15] She concluded her speech by stating:

"Today, it is exactly one hundred ten years since the first woman won the Nobel Prize in Literature – Selma Lagerlöf. I bow low to her across time, and to all the other women, all the female creators who boldly exceeded the limiting roles society imposed on them, and had the courage to tell their story to the world loud and clear. I can feel them standing behind me. We really have won the Nobel!"[14]

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Academy scandal and award postponement

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See also: Nobel Prize controversies § Literature
Arnault in Stockholm District Court during the last day of the trial in September 2018.
Frostenson (Seat 18) is accused of leaking classified information from the Nobel Committee's deliberations.

In April 2018, three Swedish Academy members (Klas Östergren, Kjell Espmark, and Peter Englund) resigned in response to a sexual-misconduct investigation involving author Jean-Claude Arnault, who is married to the member Katarina Frostenson.[16] Arnault was accused of sexual assault and harassment by at least 18 women. He and his wife were also accused of leaking the names of prize recipients on at least seven occasions so friends could profit from online bets.[17][16] He denied all accusations, although he was later convicted of rape and sentenced to two years and six months in prison.[18][19][20] Sara Danius, the permanent secretary, hired a law firm to investigate if Frostenson had violated the Academy's regulations by leaking any confidential information and whether Arnault had any influence on the Academy, but no legal action was taken. The investigation caused a division among the members of the Academy. Following a vote to stop Frostenson's membership, the three members resigned in protest over the decisions made by the Academy.[16][21] Two former permanent secretaries, Sture Allén and Horace Engdahl, called Danius a weak leader.[16]

On 10 April, Danius was requested to resign from her position by the Academy, bringing the number of empty seats to four.[22] Although the Academy voted against removing Katarina Frostenson from the committee,[23] she voluntarily agreed to withdraw from participating in the academy, bringing the total of withdrawals to five. Because two other seats were still vacant from the Rushdie affair, this left only 11 active members. On 4 May 2018, the Swedish Academy announced that the selection would be postponed until 2019, when two laureates would be chosen. It was still technically possible to choose a 2018 laureate, as only eight active members are required to choose a recipient. However, there were concerns that the academy was not in any condition to credibly present the award.[24][25][26][27]

The scandal was widely seen as damaging to the credibility of the prize and its authority.[16] As noted by Andrew Brown in The Guardian in a lengthy deconstruction of the scandal:

"The scandal has elements of a tragedy, in which people who set out to serve literature and culture discovered they were only pandering to writers and the people who hang around with them. The pursuit of excellence in art was entangled with the pursuit of social prestige. The academy behaved as if the meals in its clubhouse were as much an accomplishment as the work that got people elected there."[28]

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden said a reform of the rules may be evaluated, including the introduction of the right to resign in respect of the current lifelong membership of the committee.[29] On 5 March 2019, it was announced that the Nobel Prize in Literature would once again be awarded, and laureates for both 2018 and 2019 would be announced together. The decision came after several changes were made to the structure of the Swedish Academy as well as to the Nobel Committee members selection, in order to "[restore] trust in the Academy as a prize-awarding institution".[30] On 19 November, the Swedish Academy added five temporary external members to help its five-strong Nobel Committee in their deliberations for the 2019 and 2020 awards: author and literary translator Gun-Britt Sundstrom; publisher Henrik Petersen; and literary critics Mikaela Blomqvist, Rebecka Karde and Kristoffer Leandoer.[31] Just after two weeks, two of the newly added external members, Sundstrom and Leandoer, left the committee, with the latter saying the work to reform the scandal-hit Swedish Academy was taking too long. "I leave my job in the Nobel Committee because I have neither the patience nor the time to wait for the result of the work to change that has been started," Leandoer said.[32]

New Academy Prize in Literature

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Main article: New Academy Prize in Literature
Condé's famous novels include the historical Segu (1984), I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem (1986), Tree of Life (1987), Windward Heights (1995), and Victoire (2006).

The New Academy Prize in Literature, not affiliated with neither the Nobel Foundation or the Swedish Academy, and in no way supported by them[33] was established as an alternative literary prize.[34] It was started by Ann Pålsson, together with some Swedish librarians, in lieu of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature not being awarded and instead postponed until 2019 due to the sexual assault allegations and leakage of confidential information.[35][36]

The prize was announced on 12 October 2018 and was awarded to the Guadeloupan-French Maryse Condé, after a democratic nomination of hundreds of Swedish librarians across the country.[37] She was selected out of 47 candidates from around the globe and was among the four finalists (with Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami, and Kim Thúy).[38] She received the prize on 10 December 2018 at a ceremony at Berns salonger in Stockholm. The prize sum, 320 000 Swedish crowns, was created through crowdfunding and sponsorship.[39]

The establishment of the prize received several negative reactions in Sweden, but was well received internationally.[40][41] The New Academy was dissolved immediately after the Prize had been presented to Condé in December 2018.

Nobel Committee

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The Swedish Academy's Nobel Committee for the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature were the following members:[42]

Committee Members
Seat No. Picture Name Elected Position Profession
12 Per Wästberg
(b. 1933) 		1997 committee member novelist, journalist, poet, essayist
7 Sara Danius
(1962–2019) 		2013 associate member
permanent secretary
(resigned)[43] 		literary critic, philosopher
4 Anders Olsson
(b. 1949) 		2008 associate member
permanent secretary
(pro temporare) 		literary critic, literary historian
14 Kristina Lugn
(1948–2020) 		2006 member poet, dramatist, writer
8 Jesper Svenbro
(b. 1944) 		2006 member poet, classical philologist

References

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  1. ^ The Nobel Prize in literature 2018 nobelprize.org
  2. ^ Price announcement nobelprize.org
  3. ^ Olga Tokarczuk nobelprize.org
  4. ^ a b Olga Tokarczuk – Interview nobelprize.org
  5. ^ "Olga Tokarczuk: the dreadlocked feminist winner the Nobel needed". The Guardian. 10 October 2019.
  6. ^ "Nobel prize in literature: reactions after Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke win – as it happened". The Guardian. 10 October 2019. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  7. ^ "Olga Tokarczuk destined to win Nobel Prize, says Jennifer Croft, her translator". theworld.org. 10 October 2019. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  8. ^ a b Marc Santora; Joanna Berendt (10 October 2019). "For Poland, Nobel Prize in Literature Is Cause for Conflict as Much as Congratulation". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  9. ^ "Olga Tokarczuk receives the Nobel Prize in Literature". gov.pl. 10 October 2019. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
  10. ^ a b Nobel lecture nobelprize.org
  11. ^ The Guardian view on Nobel winner Olga Tokarczuk: light amid the dark The Guardian 13 December 2019
  12. ^ Olga Tokarczuk's concept of the Tender Narrator named Emerging Europe's Artistic Achievement 2020 Emerging Europe 2 July 2020
  13. ^ "Award Ceremony speech". nobelprize.org.
  14. ^ a b c Olga Tokarczuk – Banquet speech nobelprize.org
  15. ^ "There are always lots of other people behind a success: Olga Tokarczuk". The Indian Express. 25 June 2021. Retrieved 26 June 2021.
  16. ^ a b c d e Christina Anderson (12 April 2018). "In Nobel Scandal, a Man Is Accused of Sexual Misconduct. A Woman Takes the Fall". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  17. ^ Tim Parks (4 May 2018). "The Nobel Prize for Literature Is a Scandal All by Itself". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
  18. ^ "Tougher sentence for Jean-Claude Arnault after appeals trial". The Local. No. 3 December 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  19. ^ Malmgren, Kim; Wikström, Mattis (1 October 2018). "Jean-Claude Arnault döms till två års fängelse" [Jean-Claude Arnault sentenced to two years in prison]. Expressen. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  20. ^ Andersson, Christina (20 April 2018). "Nobel Panel Admits Inquiry Found Sexual Misconduct, but Nothing Illegal". The New York Times.
  21. ^ "Sexual Misconduct Claim Spurs Nobel Members to Step Aside in Protest". The New York Times. Reuters. 6 April 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  22. ^ Åkerman, Felicia (12 April 2018). "Sara Danius lämnar Svenska Akademien" [Sara Danius leaves the Swedeish Academy]. Dagens Industri. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  23. ^ Christopher Hooton (4 May 2018). "Nobel Prize in Literature will not be awarded this year after sex abuse allegations". The Independent. Archived from the original on 4 May 2018.
  24. ^ "Nobel Prize for Literature postponed amid Swedish Academy turmoil". BBC. 4 May 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  25. ^ Press release. "Svenska Akademien skjuter upp 2018 års Nobelpris i litteratur". Svenska Akademin. Swedish Academy. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  26. ^ Wixe, Susanne (10 April 2018). "Detta har hänt: Krisen i Svenska Akademien – på 3 minuter" [Previously: The crisis in the Swedish Academy in 3 minutes]. Aftonbladet. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  27. ^ Christina Anderson; Palko Karasz (2 May 2018). "Why There Won't Be a Nobel Prize in Literature This Year". The New York Times.
  28. ^ Andrew Brown (17 July 2018). "The ugly scandal that cancelled the Nobel prize". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  29. ^ "Nobel Prize-awarding Swedish Academy weighs reforms after controversy". Stockholm: Reuters.com. 13 April 2018. Archived from the original on 13 April 2018.
  30. ^ The Nobel Prize (5 March 2019). "Nobel Prize in Literature to be awarded again". Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  31. ^ "Swedish Academy names new jury members for Nobel Prize in literature". Gulf Times. 19 November 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
  32. ^ "Two members leave Nobel literature committee, lamenting slow pace of change". reuters.com. 2 December 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  33. ^ Flood, Alison (July 2, 2018). "Alternative Nobel literature prize planned in Sweden". The Guardian. Retrieved March 21, 2021.
  34. ^ Löfgren, Emma (29 August 2018). "Four writers shortlisted for 'the new Nobel Literature Prize'". The Local. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  35. ^ Marshall, Alex (July 13, 2018). "An Alternative to the Nobel Prize in Literature, Judged by You". The New York Times. Retrieved March 21, 2021.
  36. ^ John Henley and Alison Flood (May 4, 2018). "Nobel prize in literature 2018 cancelled after sexual assault scandal". The Guardian. Retrieved March 21, 2021.
  37. ^ Schaub, Michael (September 17, 2018). "Haruki Murakami takes his name out of the running for alternative literature Nobel". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 21, 2021.
  38. ^ "The finalists: The New Academy Prize in Literature 2018". Den Nya Akademien (The New Academy). Archived from the original on October 22, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  39. ^ "Maryse Condé accepted The New Academy Prize in Literature of SEK 320 000 in Stockholm". The New Academy Press Release. 9 December 2018. Retrieved 6 July 2022.
  40. ^ "Kritik mot Nya Akademiens litteraturpris" (in Swedish). SVT Nyheter. 16 July 2018. Retrieved 6 July 2022.
  41. ^ Flood, Alison (12 July 2018). "The Alternative Nobel: vote opens for a surprising new literature prize". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 July 2022.
  42. ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature: How are The Nobel Prize laureates in literature decided Svenska Akademien
  43. ^ Danius resigned from her position and left the academy on 12 April 2018 following the criticisms of the academy's handling of the sexual assault allegations and leakage of confidential information. She was formally removed from her seat at the Swedish Academy on 26 February 2019.
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