A Nobel repeat in the books?
Atwood considered a contender to follow in Munro’s footsteps
TORONTO — The Nobel Prize in literature will be announced Thursday, and although the odds seem slim that another Canadian will get it just a year after short- story master Alice Munro won, some observers say Canadians shouldn’t be ruled out.
The chances of someone from this country receiving the prize again from the Swedish Academy in Stockholm “should be as good as any year,” Douglas Gibson, Munro’s longtime editor and publisher, says.
“The prize is open to the best writer in the world, and that should not be, and is not, restricted to countries that have not recently won a Nobel Prize,” he says. “So Canadian writers should be in there with a really good chance.”
Magdalene Redekop, a retired English professor from the University of Toronto who specializes in Munro, says she doesn’t “see any problem” with another Canadian winning the prize this year.
“I don’t think that there is some kind of a quota system or anything.”
Notes Jack Rabinovitch, founder of the lucrative Scotiabank Giller Prize: “Once it’s happened, it can happen again.”
“I think Margaret Atwood is an outstanding Canadian writer and deserves a lot of credit and actually was probably in consideration when Alice Munro got it,” he says.
Atwood’s name has been on international lists of perennial favourites to win the prize for many years and is the one “that’s on everyone’s lips” in Canada ahead of Thursday’s Nobel literature announcement, Gibson says.
“Margaret, with her wide range of skills in poetry, fiction, non- fiction, criticism, everything, is hugely respected across the world,” he says, “and she must be this year, as any year, a hot contender. And it would be wonderful.”
Yet as of Tuesday afternoon, U. K.based betting company Ladbrokes had Atwood’s odds of winning at 33- 1.
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o of Kenya was the No. 1 favourite to win with 7- 2 odds, followed by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami at 9- 2 and Svetlana Aleksijevitj of Belarus at 6- 1.
Still, Atwood’s chances were higher than those of esteemed writers including Salman Rushdie, Cormac McCarthy, John le Carré and Colm Toibin.
It’s also worth noting that Munro wasn’t the top favourite last year, either. Ladbrokes spokesman Alex Donohue notes the Wingham, Ont., native’s odds of winning last October were 8- 1. Aleksijevitj was the oddson favourite. As it turned out, Munro went on to become the 110th Nobel laureate in literature and only the 13th woman to receive the distinction when she won at age 82. And she proved to be a wildly popular choice, according to the academy, which praised her as a “stunningly precise” writer.
“In this prize, you often see late surges in the odds, which can sometimes be quite interesting,” Donohue says.
The Nobel Prize in literature is awarded annually to a living author from any country. Winners are chosen from nominations made by individuals the Swedish Academy has deemed “qualified.” For this year’s prize, the academy says it has received 210 valid nominations.
The academy is very secretive about the process and permanent secretary Peter Englund declined an interview to discuss it.
In an email, he noted the academy has “a very strict policy” against interviews in the week before the announcement, and he “never, ever” answers questions “that touch upon the chance of certain living authors receiving the prize.”
Canadian- born, U. S.- raised writer Saul Bellow won the prize in 1976.