A look back as French feminist writer wins Nobel literature prize
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to French author Annie Ernaux, “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory” in her work, according to the citation.
The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious, lucrative, reputable and possibly the most coveted among international awards for outstanding achievements conferred annually in a cross section of fields. These include the Nobel Peace Prize, which has marked some of the most impactful achievements of change in the political world. Past winners have included Mikhail Gorbachev (1990), head of the Soviet Union, whose “glasnost” and “perestroika” tore down the iron curtain and made possible the end of the Cold War.
The Peace Prize has also gone to the late great Nelson Mandela, awarded jointly with Frederik Willem de Klerk for abolishing the evil system of apartheid in South Africa. This prize, in its other fields, has also marked earth-shaking achievements in Physics and for Economics in which there was the rare recognition of the Third World when it was awarded to Sir Arthur Lewis of the Caribbean (St Lucia).
The Nobel Prize in Literature may be regarded as an attempt to recognise the equivalent in this area of the arts. It sets out to decorate each year, the writer who stands at the top of the podium among her/his peers for excellence or for making an impact through contribution to literature as a whole or for extraordinary intervention in form or subject. Sometimes it goes to one regarded as the best at the time.
The award is often a source of lively interest among the world’s literary pundits who might engage in debates and predictions about the most likely nominees and who should win. Although information about nominees and shortlists is confidential, it always leaks out. There are often known front runners, and always there are favourites, including some who get nominated more than once but never win. There are times when a writer’s claim is so urgent that it is not difficult to predict.
Ernaux, worthy as she is, was not among those easy, predictable, or popular winners. This is not one of those years when one writer stood out and the world could say “ah, yes, of course! We thought so!”. It is a year when we learn of the strength of a writer not on our immediate radar. Yet, in the history of the prize there have been predictable or expected winners; there have been popular and resented winners, and winners hailed as significant and important for one reason or another, including those whose victory has marked crucial milestones.
One of the robust themes is the not surprising domination of the prize through its history by white writers from the west. It is therefore a milestone when a black or non-Caucasian writer breaks through. At other times it is not politics or ethnicity, but notable occasions when the Nobel Committee for Literature departs from the convention or narrow trends of tradition to show innovative thinking.
If we go back a bit in history, foremost among these occasions would be the award of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature to Rabindranauth Tagore, known to date, as the greatest poet from India. This stands out partly because of the novelty – that it was harder for a nonEuropean to break through the barriers at that time. Tagore’s cause was reportedly championed by Irish poet WB Yeats (himself a 1923 Nobel Laureate), who was impressed by him and wrote the introduction to Tagore’s greatest poetic publication Gitanjali (1912),
following a visit to Europe by Tagore. Reportedly, Tagore’s award was based on Gitanjali. But equally significant is the very important place of his writings to India long before the advancement of the Commonwealth – which developed into postcolonial literature.
Another similar breakthrough and a notable record in the history of the Nobel Prize in Literature was the award to Wole Soyinka of Nigeria in 1986. This broke new ground as he was the first Black winner from Africa. This recognition was, by that time, fairly predictable, and was one of those occasions when it was expected. Soyinka was the leading African poet-playwright with a great deal to say about the cultural dynamics of the west, the traditional (of Africa) ethnic politics and the new emerging postcolonial literature. The prize began to win approval for its growth and less restricted outlook.
It cannot be said whether this opened the gate, but the next milestone came six years after Soyinka’s, and was another predictable one. There was no surprise when Derek Walcott of St Lucia became the first Caribbean writer to win the Nobel Prize (1992). The region was waiting for it. Walcott himself had a meteoric rise and was eventually identified as the world’s best poet. Also without surprise, his close friends Seamus Heaney of Northern Ireland (1995) and Joseph Brodsky of Russia (1987) were also Nobel winners, underlining a cross-cultural bond of international poets who worked together in Walcott’s homeland St Lucia. Interestingly, Heaney is today regarded as a postcolonial poet. By the time of his crowning in 1992, Walcott was already a leader in the advance of West Indian literature as a force in the world.
Following on these breakthroughs, were winners in First World countries, but who belonged to a minority or were outside of the conventional and the conservative. Again, there was no surprise when the award was made to the first Black woman – American novelist Toni Morrison (1993). As a mainstream writer in the USA, Morrison contributed considerably to what is called Black American Literature, but with work that also transcended that label.
Surprises definitely diminished and it became a bit more accepted when winners came from outside of narrow conservative conventions. Such was the case in 2016 when the great and exceptional songwriter, folk and country, and sometimes controversial protest singer Bob Dylan was announced as the winner. It might not have surprised many informed critics, but it took Dylan quite by surprise, if not shock. Such was his incredulity that he almost committed the rare act of disregard by not accepting the honour. He was committed to performance tours. Those still prevented him from going to Stockholm, but he was gracious enough to accept the award with humility and sent a recorded acceptance speech.
His Nobel Lecture was an important one in the history of this prize. He admitted that he never stopped to think and to consider his work as “literature”. Comparing his position to that of Shakespeare, he argued that he was sure the legendary Bard of Avon never stopped to think that he was producing literature, but indeed, he produced the best in the world. He showed some grace in thanking the Swedish Academy for accepting his work into the hallowed halls of literature. Perhaps, if the Swedish Jury had been sold on these progressive lines of thought some 38 years earlier, Bob Marley could have been in line for that honour.
And surely, this was an important consideration because it showed the Nobel Jury as capable of progressive thought. They were prepared to honour a writer outside of the old conventions. They accepted the performance, the oral and the folk as being a part of the world’s literature, as it quite rightly is. The notion of literature today includes performance, oral literature, film, folk and other related forms. Related to this is when the 2005 Prize was awarded to playwright Harold Pinter of the UK. He, too, might have wondered if his plays were literature, and he, too, was unable to travel to Sweden – in his case because of ill health.
Another winner of great importance to the West Indies was the Prince of Controversy himself, Sir Vidia Naipaul (2001). Embroiled in controversy throughout his career, from The Middle Passage in 1962 to various other publications and statements up to 40 years later, he had accumulated a great volume of resentment and criticism. Having been accused of dismissing and ignoring his native Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean, in his reported response to the announcement that he had won the prize, he seemed to have deliberately made amends by focusing his Nobel Lecture in Stockholm on the less known history of Trinidad and his cultural/social roots in the West Indies. (He had been reported as giving thanks to Great Britain, “my adopted home, and India, my ancestral home”).
Above all else, the announcement that the honour had gone to Naipaul was met with an outpouring of resentment. There was large-scale de-celebration of a Caribbean winner. His greatest literary triumph was cause and occasion for all the criticism of his attitudes and anti-West Indian sentiments to flow from around the region (including a Stabroek News Editorial, Dec 7, 2001).
There was much more praise from all around for a writer who did not win the Nobel Prize – Sir Wilson Harris. Here was a Caribbean writer, given much more admiration, who never won the ultimate honour, despite several reports that he had been nominated and was in consideration.
It is too soon to be able to analyse the response from around the world to the announcement of the 2022 winner. But she is unlikely to have evoked the kind of contrasting emotions as were seen in the lukewarm acknowledgement or controversy surrounding Naipaul who won it, or the outpouring of adoration for Harris, who did not.