Find Michael's new book The Social Life of the Nobel Prize in Literature (Bloomsbury 2026) here:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/social-life-of-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-9798765188903/

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In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Shuangyi Li, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Cultures at the University of Bristol, whose research spans comparative and world literature, transcultural and translingual writing, translation, intermediality, and the work of Chinese and diasporic writer-artists including Gao Xingjian.

In discussing the chapter “Escaping Prestige” from my book The Social Life of the Nobel Prize in Literature, we dive into the paradoxes of literary prestige through Gao Xingjian’s life and work following his 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature. Taking the idea of the Nobel as a potential “kiss of death” as our starting point, we explore Gao’s desire for a “second escape” from the fame, recognition, and monumentalization brought by the Prize. Dr. Li discusses the relationship between Gao’s painting, cinema, and other artistic practices, as we consider how l’année Gao brings poetry, painting, theatre, opera, and film into a transmedial reflection on death, freedom, and immortality. Finally, we examine a central paradox of Gao’s post-Nobel career: while Nobel prestige threatens his artistic autonomy, the cultural, social, and economic capital generated by that same prestige also enables some of his most ambitious artistic experiments.

Find Michael's new book The Social Life of the Nobel Prize in Literature (Bloomsbury 2026) here:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/social-life-of-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-9798765188903/

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In this episode, we are joined by Dr Simona Gallo from the University of Milan, whose research focuses on contemporary Chinese and Sinophone literature, literary and cultural translation, multilingual writing, transmedial creation, and the work of Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian.

In discussing the chapter “The Chinese Nobel Complex” from my book The Social Life of the Nobel Prize in Literature, we reconsider the familiar idea that Chinese fascination with the Nobel Prize can be understood simply as a desire for Western recognition. Professor Gallo introduces the memorable analogy of Aesop’s fox and the sour grapes, opening a discussion about desire, rejection, national pride, and the strategic uses of Nobel prestige. We examine how responses to Gao Xingjian’s Nobel Prize differ across mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and wider Sinophone communities, and consider how even partial or “thin” knowledge of the Nobel can generate new cultural meanings. The conversation then turns to Gao’s resistance to fixed notions of Chineseness, his idea of a “New Renaissance,” and the role of translation across languages, cultures, and artistic media. Finally, we ask whether Gao’s paintings might be “literary” without being literature, and how works such as Requiem for Beauty challenge the boundaries separating literature from other art forms.

Find Michael's new book The Social Life of the Nobel Prize in Literature (Bloomsbury 2026) here:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/social-life-of-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-9798765188903/

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In this episode, we are joined by Dr Gustav Källstrand, historian of ideas and Nobel expert at the Nobel Prize Museum, where he also hosts the podcast Ideas That Change the World. His work examines the history, culture, and enduring significance of the Nobel Prize.

In discussing the chapter “Reading the Nobel’s Prestige” from my book The Social Life of the Nobel Prize in Literature, we explore how the Nobel Prize acquired its extraordinary prestige and why that prestige continues to shape the way writers, scientists, institutions, media, and the public understand recognition and achievement. Källstrand discusses the role of ceremony, ritual, media attention, and repetition in establishing the Nobel as a cultural institution, while we consider prestige as a “chain of belief” sustained by those who participate in it. We also examine how criticism and scandal can paradoxically reinforce rather than diminish the Prize’s authority, and debate the tension between tradition, relevance, and institutional change. Finally, we compare literary and scientific cultures of recognition, exploring how ambition, ego, peer judgment, and the desire to win complicate the ideal of disinterested intellectual work—and why, despite our criticisms of prizes, winning the Nobel can remain extraordinarily difficult to resist.

Find Michael's new book The Social Life of the Nobel Prize in Literature (Bloomsbury 2026) here:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/social-life-of-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-9798765188903/

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In this episode, we are joined by Professor Anne-Marie Mai from the University of Southern Denmark, whose research encompasses Danish and Nordic literature, literary history, narrative medicine, and Bob Dylan studies.

In discussing the chapter on Bob Dylan from my book The Social Life of the Nobel Prize in Literature, we revisit the controversy surrounding Dylan’s 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature and ask what his selection reveals about the boundaries of literature itself. Professor Mai reflects on the debates sparked by Dylan’s win and the ways in which song, poetry, music, and performance challenge conventional distinctions between literary and non-literary forms. We discuss Dylan’s uneasy relationship with the Nobel Prize, the social and political afterlives of songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and the role of translation in carrying Dylan’s words across linguistic and cultural boundaries. The conversation also explores masculinity and “creative melancholy” in Dylan’s work, whether song lyrics can—or should—be separated from their music, and how awarding the Nobel to Dylan both unsettles and complicates established ideas about literary prestige, cultural hierarchy, and world literature.

In this episode, we welcome Dr. Eric Sandberg, Associate Professor at City University of Hong Kong and Docent at the University of Oulu, Finland. Dr. Sandberg's research interests range from modernism to the contemporary novel, with a particular interest in the borderlands between literary and popular fiction. He co-edited Adaptation, Awards Culture, and the Value of Prestige with Colleen Kennedy-Karpat in 2017 (Palgrave), and edited 100 Greatest Literary Detectives in 2018 (Rowman & Littlefield). His monograph on Virginia Woolf appeared in 2014, and he published a companion to the work of Dorothy L. Sayers in 2021 (McFarland). He has published essays in numerous edited collections and journals, and his latest monographs, Studying Crime in Fiction(Routledge) and Crime Fiction and the Holocaust (Palgrave Macmillan) came out in 2024 and 2025.

We discuss the broader cultural significance of the Nobel Prize in Literature, focusing on how literary awards, as explored in Dr. Sandberg’s research, facilitate adaptations and shape cultural prestige. Drawing on Sara Danius’ rationale for awarding Bob Dylan the Nobel for his poetic fusion of high and low literary traditions, we explore how Thomas Pynchon’s integration of pop culture mirrors this approach. Finally, we examine Pynchon’s novel Inherent Vice as a prime example of his ability to bridge high and low culture, blending detective fiction with literary depth.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Solomon Azumurana from the Department of English at the University of Lagos, whose research focuses on the comparative study of African and African American novels, gender studies with an emphasis on women’s creative writing, and the intersection of literary theories and fiction.

We dive into the debates surrounding Wole Soyinka’s 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, exploring the controversies that marked his historic win as the first African laureate. Dr. Azumurana sheds light on Soyinka’s play A Dance of the Forests, highlighted by the Swedish Academy during his Nobel ceremony, discussing its themes and significance. We also examine how the play’s dystopian portrayal of the past and present serves as a cautionary vision for the future. Finally, we explore Soyinka’s Nobel lecture, “The Past Must Address the Present,” where he critiques Western intellectual traditions for perpetuating racist ideologies, and discuss how his call to “sever that cord” of unjust traditions resonates with the dystopian themes in A Dance of the Forests.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Hanna Protasova, a Ukrainian literary scholar and journalist, who earned her Candidate of Sciences degree from Ukraine’s Taras Shevchenko Institute in 2021, specializing in Ukrainian literary modernism and émigré literature. Currently a PhD student in Comparative Literature at Western University, Canada, her dissertation examines Holocaust representation in Ukrainian fiction and non-fiction from the 1940s to 2020s.

We discuss whether Ukrainian writers, like Boris Pasternak or Jean-Paul Sartre, ever distanced themselves from Nobel Prize nominations due to political pressures, and what this reveals about the risks and responsibilities authors face under oppressive regimes. Dr. Protasova also explores the concept of “witness literature,” recognized by the Swedish Academy for its testimony to trauma, and considers whether both firsthand and imaginative accounts of the Holocaust in Ukrainian writing qualify as such. Finally, we delve into Iurii Klen’s haunting epic poem Ashes of Empires, focusing on its stark imagery, such as Jewish babies treated as footballs during the Holocaust, and its significance in Ukrainian literary history.U

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Karin Nykvist, Associate Professor in Comparative Literature at Lund University and a freelance literary critic for the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, where she has contributed book reviews for over 20 years and occasionally covered Nobel Prize announcements.

We explore the behind-the-scenes impact of Nobel announcement day on newsroom routines at Sydsvenskan, from rapid shifts in editorial priorities to the scramble for expert commentary. We also discuss why controversial laureates often dominate headlines more than beloved figures, unpacking the role of debate in amplifying literary discourse.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Mónika Dánél, Assistant Professor at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Dr. Dánél, a lead investigator for the research project Space-ing Otherness: Cultural Images of Space, Contact Zones in Contemporary Hungarian and Romanian Film and Literature, specializes in comparative literature with a focus on multilingualism in East-Central European contexts.

We explore her argument that multilingualism, rather than the nation, serves as a more effective lens for studying comparative literature in this region. Dr. Dánél discusses why this approach better captures the cultural and literary dynamics of East-Central Europe. We also delve into how a multilingual perspective reshapes our understanding of the Prize, often seen as a “literary Olympics,” and challenges traditional notions of literary canons by highlighting writers with multiple national and cultural identities.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Claire Gullander-Drolet, Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. Dr Gullander-Drolet’s research focuses on literary translation and memory, and she is currently leading a Hong Kong Research Grants Committee-funded project on feminist translation studies approaches to world literatures in English.

We discuss the Swedish Academy’s recognition of Han Kang, the 2024 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, and explore the poetic and historical dimensions of her work. Dr Gullander-Drolet sheds light on the controversies surrounding the English translation of The Vegetarian, offering insights into the cultural concept of “han” and the challenges it poses for Western audiences. Lastly, we delve into the translator’s role as both mediator and co-creator, and how The Vegetarian reflects the broader dynamics of world literature and South Korea’s efforts to promote its literary heritage globally.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Karl Ågerup, Senior Lecturer at Södertörn University (previously Head of the Humanities Division and Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Örebro). Dr Ågerup’s research focuses on the pedagogical and political dimensions of fictional discourse, and his latest book, Critical Responses to the Nobel Prize in Literature (2022), explores the varied critiques of this prestigious award.

We discuss the goals of the 196th Nobel Symposia and what inspired Dr Ågerup to study the criticism surrounding the Nobel Prize in Literature. He offers insights into why critics publicly engage with the Prize and breaks down the most common criticisms of its selections in the 21st century. Lastly, we explore how these critiques can serve as constructive forces in the broader struggles for autonomy and emancipation.

In this episode, we are joined by Professor Takashi Inoue, Professor of Japanese Literature at Shirayuri University. Prof. Inoue specializes in modern and contemporary literature and has published extensively on renowned authors Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo. His updated biography on Mishima was honored with the Yomiuri Prize for Literature in 2020, and his latest English-language work examines Japan's quest for the Nobel Prize in Literature through the narratives of “before” and “after” winning.

We discuss Prof. Inoue's aims for the 196th Nobel Symposia and the inspiration behind his exploration of Japan's literary aspirations. He shares insights drawn from archival material about the influence of diplomacy, Cold War politics, and translation techniques on Kawabata Yasunari's Nobel win. Additionally, we delve into the negative reception Oe Kenzaburo faced in Japan after his Nobel Prize and his responses to this backlash.

In this episode, we are joined by Paul Tenngart, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Lund University and an expert in Swedish and French poetry, literary translation, and climate fiction. His latest book, The Nobel Prize and the Formation of Contemporary World Literature (2023), explores how the Nobel Prize has shaped global literary aesthetics since its inception.

We discuss the aims of the 196th Nobel Symposia, the inspiration behind his research on the Nobel Prize, and what makes this prestigious award unique. Paul also introduces the concept of "canon formation from the side," highlighting the Prize’s cultural influence on literature. Finally, we dive into his thoughts on the Swedish Academy’s “culture of secrecy” in administering the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In this episode, we are joined by Prof Wojciech Kruszewski, a philologist and editor at The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. Prof Kruszewski is the Head of the Chair of Textology and Edition and has been leading the Philomath's Archive - Digital Edition research group since 2019. His notable editorial work includes a four-volume selection of Polish poet Anna Kamieńska’s works (2020) and a critical edition of Adam Mickiewicz's drama Dziady (2022).

We delve into the field of textology, exploring how it relates to genetic criticism and how both can enhance our understanding of major authors and their creative processes. Prof Kruszewski shares insights on how these methods can influence the way we evaluate literary works and prizes, such as the Nobel Prize in Literature. We also discuss whether textology and genetic criticism can assess the fairness of literary awards and how these fields might contribute to studying the Nobel’s focus on an author’s “genius” and lifetime achievement.

In this episode, we talk with Prof Carlos Spoerhase and Dr Jørgen Sneis from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Together, they lead a research project on the Nobel Prize in Literature and its global influence.

We discuss their "Literature in the Nobel Era" conference series and key findings from their research. They explain how the Nobel’s reputation as a prestigious award was shaped by media coverage and data tables. We also explore the connection between Alfred Nobel’s legacy and the media’s early interest in the prize, as well as the Nobel’s role in promoting international understanding, similar to the Olympics.

In this episode, we talk with Professor Bette London from the University of Rochester about her course on Nobel Prize Literature. We discuss how the course introduces students to the Nobel Prize, the works included in the syllabus, and the controversies surrounding the prize. Professor London also shares how students are encouraged to think critically about the Nobel, while still recognizing its cultural importance. We also explore her view that the diverse range of countries, languages, and traditions represented by the Nobel means that "we’re all learners together."

Dr Alice Hall is a lecturer in Contemporary and Global Literature at University of York. In 2013, she was one of ten academics chosen as ‘New Generation Thinkers’ by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC. With Professor Sanjoy Bhattacharya, she set up a new MA in Medical History and Humanities, which launched in 2016. She currently holds a Springboard Fellowship funded by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Wellcome Trust. Disability and Modern Fiction Faulkner, Morrison, Coetzee and the Nobel Prize for Literature is the book she published in 2012.

Within disability studies there are the medical and social models. The medical model is about functional impairment such as a missing limb, while the social is about how society disables that person such as the lack of wheelchair ramps.

We learn about the world through literature. Literature can promote stereotypes and be damaging, but it can also promote discourse that promotes engagement. Literature presents different perspectives and creates a unique space for thinking about disability rights. People’s perception of disability is shaped by the language used in stories, therefore reading and writing sensitizes us to how the narratives are constructed. Disability is a shifting category that is constantly being rewritten.

Toni Morrison’s works matter for disability rights as they collapse the boundaries between the author and the reader, allowing us to get under the skin of the characters, sensitizing us to others’ points of view while acknowledging the limits of the struggle to do so. From her Nobel lecture:

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek – it must be rejected, altered and exposed.

Morrison shows how language can be a tool of oppression and the enactment of violence, therefore the process of studying the use of language helps challenge those stereotypes.

Hall chose Faulkner, Morrison and Coetzee as subjects for her book in order to challenge most people’s view that disability is a niche concern. Three celebrated canonical writers with great prestige help highlight the fact that disability is actually a key concern among some of the most important 20^th and 21^st century writers. Disability is everywhere in a whole wealth of representation. These three are also public intellectuals. Their Nobel lectures outlined their views on what it is to be a writer and why it is important. Interestingly they all used disability as metaphors at key moments in their careers as a way of structuring their own contributions to the field.

All three also spoke of the responsibility of the writer; Faulkner said “this award is only mine in trust”.  Writers have an ethical responsibility of dealing with disability, race, gender etc. With language comes power, an agency. There is an ethical weight that comes with complexity, ambiguity, challenges and the difficulties manifested in their works as writers experiment with form.

Alfred Nobel stipulated that the literature prize is to be awarded to “the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction”. Idealism in literature in 1901 meant it was not realism, but works of transcendent values. These values today are how writers mediate between the roles of the writer and the critic, the writer and the character and the writer and the reader. There is process of working towards an ideal, Moving between the physical and metaphorical, between different levels of consciousness, between the fictional and the critical. The ideal is malleable. The process of moving towards the ideal is what connects these three different writers.

In Morrison’s Nobel lecture she uses a relatively classic format of a fable, fairy tale like structure of the blind old woman and the young people with a bird in the hand. During the story she intervenes as the writer by taking control of the language, inviting a range of metaphorical readings of the tale. The bird is the metaphorical representation of language as something one holds in one’s hand; it can be moulded, changed and for which one takes responsibility. The collaborative story telling between the old lady and the young people is a move towards the ideal of meaning as an unfinished process. Rather than explaining the metaphor, Morrison invites people to have agency over literature rather than just be passive participants.

This quote from Faulkner’s Nobel lecture is often mis-interpreted as a late 19^th century view of the writer whose work is spiritual and perpetuates a nostalgia for old ideals, a loss of the golden age of the American South.

… writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself …. [man] is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The … writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.

But in reality this quote is more about the fragility of the individual body versus universal ideals The direct question of the Cold War era: “There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up?” There is a constant fear of physical threat. The process of writing is very physical; a life’s work of agony and sweat of the spirit. One must write with compassion. Faulkner wrote about what it meant for young men to come back from war and not fit the ideals of masculinity imposed on them. The scars are the images of the challenges of writing.

The ideal of the Nobel prize moves away from the pre-war writers and marks the moment when the kind of work to be rewarded are those that challenge and are experimental in their approach to what is ideal. It is a process of piecing together the elements of a story, which is a painful process in itself.

Coetzee had a very clear adoration of Faulkner. He was especially interested in Faulkner as a biographer who portrayed himself as a war hero and feigned disability. This fantasy of disability becomes the trigger of fiction writing. Morrison did her MA dissertation on Faulkner and was interested in the alienated outsider in his works and the big effect this had on her. All three refuse to look away from the unspeakable and try to find form to address the taboos and what is unspoken of in society. This discomforting yet compelling element is shared by them all.

Kenzaburo Oe is a Nobel laureate with a clear disability engagement. In his Nobel lecture he imagines the world from the perspective of his disabled son. Harold Pinter used his disability as part of his performance of the Nobel lecture, as well as the backdrop for the visceral and physical metaphor of his criticism of Blair, Bush and the media’s role in the invasion of Iraq. Pinter was very focused on the physical aspect of his disability which made speaking a struggle, but yet he felt a responsibility to do so as a physical and political defiance.

Perspectives of disability studies, health and embodiment are becoming a greater part of English literature. Hall has edited books that allow students to access this field by allowing thinking of critical movements such as feminism, disability studies, post-colonial studies, and how they are rooted within activist campaigns.  

Yukiko Duke is a cultural critic, journalist and editor of the Swedish literary magazine. She is also the artistic director of the Stockholm annual literary festival.

The Swedes are a reading people. But the readership rate has been declining. Sales of books are down as is the usage of public libraries, probably due to the many different ways of getting cultural information, such as through the internet or Netflix. Thus, there is no need to read anymore. But during the pandemic, book sales soared. People realized the important role played by literature in connecting with the times as well as learning about the past, the world and the self. The education reform instilled by the social democrats since the early 20^th century ensured every child had a chance to read and have access to an academic education. Therefore, Swedes read. Unlike Hong Kong which also has universal education, the Swedes do not measure success by material wealth.

The Nobel prize doesn’t hold the same weight in Sweden as it does in some other countries. Sweden has many literary prizes whose winners are more accessible to the reader. The prestige of the Nobel is important to booksellers, but not so for the Swedish literary audience. Nobel prize winners tend to be either story tellers or language innovators. The language innovators tend to be difficult to read and are less relevant to the ordinary reader.

The Swedish Academy, founded in 1768, is a very influential cultural institution. The Nobel is the prize of the prizes and the Swedes do look forward to this great literary event. But two events have led to a diminishing interest and respect for the Nobel prize.

The first was the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie in 1989. The Academy is supposed to support free speech and intellectual freedom, but it did nothing at the time. Three members resigned.

The second was the 2018 Me Too sex scandal which shook the Academy from within and from the outside. Equality is extremely important for the Swedes, and women are strong. This scandal ‘pulled the [Academy’s} underpants down’, and nobody wanted to see this.

The Academy was regarded by the Swedes as a strong unshakable institution that was above all doubts and affairs. Both these events were shocking for the Swedes as they tainted the Academy, and by extension, the Nobel prize. The Academy took a long while to clear its name, but its reputation had been tarnished. The disgrace of the institution was of greater concern to the Swedes.

The Swedes feel the Academy has a responsibility to uphold the ideals of the prize as espoused in Alfred Nobel’s will. But its structural flaws that make this a difficult task. For one, works need to be translated. The Academy relies on PEN associations, writers’ associations and former Nobel laureates who promote writers they think should get the prize. Sometimes there are writers in languages that Academy members cannot read, so translations are ordered. For example, there was not a single work by Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian laureate in 1988, that had been translated into Swedish. But the Academy understood that the Arabic speaking world were unified in having Mahfouz’s works recognized, and so commissioned 4 to 5 works for translations and found others that had been translated into languages they could read.

The Academy has limitations. All members can read western languages but not so for Asian and African ones, thus the predominance of western literature prize winners. This is something that is being addressed through its network that helps pick writers from different parts of the world. For example, the 2021 laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah was a surprise choice as nobody knew this Tanzanian author who actually wrote in English. The Academy is trying to rectify the imbalance between western and non-western as well as male and female writers.

Winners are chosen based on literary merit and whether their works are interesting and deal with the human condition and how the world exists. Public expectations are not a consideration. Academy members have different views which results in power plays between regions and countries. Göran Malmqvist the sinologue pushed very strongly for Mo Yan (2012) as well as Gao Xinjiang (2000). Gabriel García Márquez (1982) had many friends in the Academy who were knowledgeable about Latin literature. Per Wästberg, the champion for African literature pushed for Nadine Gordimer (1991).

Although winners are difficult to predict, Kazuo Ishiguro (2017) was considered a popular choice. He is a talented story teller. Story tellers are easier to read than the language innovators and can become liked and popular. But when writers are too easy to read, they tend not to get the prize. Notable is Graham Greene, perhaps deemed uninteresting and not innovative enough by the Academy’s standards. Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood have probably been on the list for many years but have never won. They are all too popular and have published a few too many works.

As a translator of both Haruki Murakami and Kenzaburō Ōe (1994 Nobel prize), Duke considers them both very successful at expressing what goes on in Japanese society and its dark side, even if they are of different generations. Ōe tells of Japan’s modernization post World War II that created an anxiety as the change was happening too fast. People had a traditional mindset but were forced into modern living. Murakami is of the generation after Ōe and had no connection with traditional culture yet did not really feel part of the new modern American society in which they were living, which also creates an anxiety. His characters are mostly drifters who have no place in society as they are unable to choose the kind of life they live. The younger Japanese writers today, and many are women, such as Hiromi Kawakami, write about issues that have not been previously dealt with. Such as what it is like to be Korean-Japanese amid the racial discrimination, what it means to have an abusive father or mothers who don’t or can’t care. The anxiety is still prevalent.

Duncan Bartlett is a rock musician journalist who has written about Bob Dylan in the Wall Street Journal, a current affairs journalist and editor of Asian Affairs magazine, as well as a research associate at SOAS. As an observer and great fan of Dylan, Bartlett has been listening to Dylan since the age of 13, has every single one of his albums and has attended numerous concerts.

Dylan’s initial apparent reluctance to accept the Nobel prize may stem from a number of factors. He was honoured and flattered and it is not as though he doesn’t accept prizes and recognitions. For example he was awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 and the Légion d’Honneur in 2013 and has received numerous Grammys, a Golden Globe and an Oscar. But he only wants to accept honours that judge him on the records he releases and his concerts. The Nobel is for literature but he is a singer-songwriter, so this may have contributed to his hesitancy. But more importantly, Dylan didn’t want to go through the rituals and make a speech.

In 1963 he was awarded the Tom Paine Civil Liberties prize. He was quite inebriated when he gave his speech at the formal ceremony. He most inappropriately identified with Lee Harvey Oswald. This earned him booing by the audience and subsequently slamming by the media. The Nobel prize giving ceremony is heavy in pomp and circumstance: the laureate has to make a speech, there are press conferences and media attention. As this was not an environment Dylan is comfortable in he avoided being there. He recorded his speech and picked up his prize a few days later in private. Any public performance has to be on his terms.

Each year the Nobel committee gives a specific reason for their choice. The interpretation of literature has expanded over the years beyond just novelists and poets. For example in 1953 Winston Churchill was awarded the literature prize for ‘his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values’. Dylan was for ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’. 

Bartlett’s criticism of considering Dylan’s work as just poetry would mean separating the lyrics from the music and thereby not being able to appreciate what he is doing artistically. The New York Times claimed him to be a brilliant lyricist, he also writes poetry, but his writing is inseparable from his music. The Nobel committee would probably encourage people to listen to his songs.

Dylan’s Nobel speech is interesting. He discussed books that inspired him such as Moby Dick and Homer’s Odyssey. He mentions Buddy Holly who set the template for rock n’ roll. Buddy Holly’s lyrics are simple and not really poetic but are marvellous together with the music in songs. There is a danger of elevating the fun side of rock n’ roll to the level of high brow literature and talk about Dylan in the same language as one would a novelist or poet. This will make Dylan’s material seem inaccessible, even irrelevant. Dylan has songs for all occasions, such as falling in love, sadness or loss, growing old – facets of life that people understand and relate to.

Bartlett is not sure if the Nobel prize raises the winner to celebrity status. For example, Abdulrazak Gurnah, the 2021 literature laurate is hardly a household name. In the 1960s Dylan wasn’t praised as part of the literary canon. In fact students who listened to Dylan felt rebellious and Dylan himself was raising the finger to literature. He was then, and still is, working within a tradition. A problem with the prize is that the work may be too technical, too high brow for the average student, and instead of stimulating an interest in the subject, it will be off-putting. Educators need to encourage students to study literature rather than make the task daunting. Some of Dylan’s work can be quite difficult to understand, especially those that touch on religion, but others are very simple.

Is Dylan a literary genius? In almost all Dylan’s songs over the past 50 years there is the ‘I’. The ‘I’ is a literary device to create a persona. But how much of this ‘I’ relates to him? He tours, writes songs, writes books, but very little is known about him as a person. He doesn’t talk about his family, where he lives, he’s a very private person. Therefore people project onto him these magical qualities that turn him into a genius. That is a burden. In studying Dylan as literature, it is worth spending time in seeing how songs progress, how narrative is expressed in songs, the tropes in rhymes. With Dylan there is an appreciation of lyric writing that reflects the times.

If the Academy’s objective was to expand the definition of literature to include song writing, was this the reason why Dylan won? Other contemporary music contenders could have been Joni Mitchell or Leonard Cohen. But Dylan is the most literary – he quotes from Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, uses surrealism, incorporates other traditions – balladeering, country, gospel etc. And he is still very active in not only singing and song writing, but also is writing books and organising art exhibitions. Therefore he was the obvious choice. Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, who announced Dylan as the 2016 winner didn’t have a great knowledge of his works. She should have prepared better. Maybe this hints at a disconnect – did the Academy really appreciate his works or were they using him for some other purpose, like to extend the definition of literature? The Nobel cannot be the arbiter of global excellence in literature, therefore it must have other functions.

Since winning the Nobel in 2016, Dylan recorded several albums of Sinatra songs, perhaps as a reminder that he works in the great American song tradition. The only original album was the 2020 Rough and Rowdy Ways, a very creative work that shows how energised he is. The literary style draws on many different sources and fuses them together. There is a song about the murder of JFK, perhaps as a way of making amends for his inappropriate remarks during his 1963 speech? Maybe the concept of receiving the Nobel and giving a speech brought back the 1963 speech and fed into his song writing imagination? In a way the Nobel prize gave him the credibility to be more academic. He is writing a book ‘The Philosophy of Modern Song’ that will come out in November 2022. It is ‘academic’ in that it analyses pop songs. His last book was Chronicles, an autobiography, published in 2004. It received good reviews. It is a rarity to write something so reflective.

Bartlett likes the idea of universities offering courses in Dylan or other singer song writers, if these are fun and enjoyable. Rock n’ roll stars don’t stand in front of an audience and deliver a speech. The experience of rock n’ roll cannot be divorced from learning about it. The course must be real and make people feel they can pick up a guitar and sing while thinking about the lyrics. There is always a worry about putting people off, as such a course could be quite difficult with an in-depth study of both music and lyrics. Rather than burden Dylan, people must be encouraged to listen, to let his music speak to their hearts.

Xu Xi is the author of fourteen books, including five novels, seven collections of short fiction & essays and one memoir. Her novel Habit of a Foreign Sky (2010) was a finalist for the Asian Man Booker Award and her short story Famine (2004) was awarded the O’Henry prize. Her works feature on many college literature reading lists.

Xu Xi defines success as being able to live life as a writer. That is to continue reading, writing, publishing, talking with other writers and having time to loaf. Monetary success is less important as she has always had and still has other jobs, but her greatest satisfaction comes from being a writer.

Literary prizes do help a writer’s career, although many are constraint by constructs.  Xu Xi is often “not qualified” for many prizes, in that she does not fit the constructs by which those prizes were awarded. The Nobel prize profiles the country and thus introduces writers onto the stage of world literature. But there is also the language and how that person’s writing fits into the constructs of literature, and there is generally some literary merit regardless of whether one likes the works or not.

As a judge for literary prizes, Xu Xi suspends her own prejudices and preferences for form. Good writing has to have a combination of how well the piece works within its form, how well it respects the conventions and how well the writer uses language.

There have been criticisms of Nobel winners as being not very meaningful. In academics, literature is something with a cultural aesthetic value that somehow survives the passage of time. Many contenders but non-winners of the Nobel prize are still being read today.  While the Nobel draws attention and preserves the works, there are some winners who will not be important in the future.

The literature that survives are due in part to the publishing industry, to literary prizes and what time and tide preserves. Book burnings happened in many cultures. Much has been lost and what remains is what has gotten pieced together. Then there are long lost works like the Dead Sea Scrolls that somehow find their way into the future. Digital adds a layer of complication – what will be retained?

Xu Xi does not write for a particular reader, she writes for that unknown person who will somewhere, sometime, pick up her work and that her work will make an impression. In the same way some authors and stories made an impact and influenced her as a young writer.

Academia tends to deemphasize the role of the author. In some genres the author cannot be ignored, namely creative non-fiction and memoirs. Here the author is important to understanding their writings in the context of their place and time. Trying to relate an author’s biography to the works is not particularly useful. Although when teaching literature the professor has a duty to provide the context, not about the author, but about when it was written. Context helps explicate a story, yet a story can be read as just that. Most writers like to tell stories and love using the language. Both of these are of little concern with what the author represents. The tendency to over-interpret who or what the author represents leads to a politicization of literature.

The Nobel recognises a life’s works and goes to someone who has had some recognition in his/her own country. The recognition of the author, especially if some works still command attention, is of real value. Such lifetime awards says something about what authors have provided readers over the span of their lives.  The Nobel has to highlight the author and cannot get away from the politics. The prize is national and Eurocentric, but not surprising since it started in Sweden.   

Nobel laureate Hong Kong writer? Xi Xi was definitely on the list as a 2021 Nobel contender. She won the Newman prize in 2019 and her works are now seriously looked at. P.K. Leung, had he lived, would have certainly been in the running. Both could be described as embracing the cosmopolitan culture of what was Hong Kong; both were intellectuals, fluent in English, bi-cultural and yet could be very local Hong Kong. Sadly Hong Kong does not have a vast literature: publishers are only interested in pop culture, and Hong Kong literature is not even taught.

The Nobel has not embraced pop culture as it is not considered literature. But does literature have space for science fiction or the graphic memories that are more than just comic books? Literature is the written word and use of language. Will it transform and cross over to other media in the future? Will performance take on new meaning? Literature is becoming amorphous. But the story will never go away.