5 ms·

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2015

56 points by davidiach 11y ago

GFischer 11y ago
I find it interesting that betting houses have gotten the winners right for a few years already. http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/nobel-prize-2015-betting-odds-who-are-literature-peace-physics-favorites-2127359 http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/nobel-prize-2015-betting-odds-w... Something similar to the DraftKings affair maybe, where someone or several someones with insider information are using it for their advantage? She wasn't a dark horse to win though, she's been favored for at least a year now: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/nonfiction-deserves-nobel http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/nonfiction... So it might be a case of a Prediction Game doing right I remember from some years ago the Hollywood Stock Exchange ( www.hsx.com/ ), an online game where people "invested" on movies, was used as a "crowd wisdom" source for decisions on whether to fund movies, etc, and was fairly accurate IIRC. Maybe there's a similar opportunity for other fields? A Startup Stock Exchange game? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Stock_Exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Stock_Exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market
- hullo 11y ago
  This is actually only the second time in 12 years that the favorite per the Ladbrokes odds has gotten the award, the last being Pamuk in 2006. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123058/who-will-win-nobel-prize-literature http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123058/who-will-win-nobel...
  - GFischer 11y ago
    I stand corrected, it seems the Literature nobel prize is very hard to guess correctly, they did find out last year's prize early but it was because of a leak. http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/nobel-prize-in-literature-won-by-french-writer-patrick-modiano-1.2793454 http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/nobel-prize-in-literature-won-by... "Betting on Modiano to win the Nobel surged in the last week, raising questions about a possible leak. David Williams of bookmaker Ladbrokes said Modiano's odds had shortened from 100-1 a few months ago to 10-1 before the announcement." Edit: I still think a "Startup Stock Exchange" could be fun, maybe based on CrunchBase or something :)
    - EvanKelly 11y ago
      I used to mess around on exchangel.co, but mainly I'm interested in placing long bets which just require some patience rather than trading in the artificial market. I think there's another one out there too that does start up trading.
      - GFischer 11y ago
        Thanks! I'll look them up.
guard-of-terra 11y ago
I've never read her but I assume this is where you start: http://lib.ru/NEWPROZA/ALEKSIEWICH/zhensk.txt http://lib.ru/NEWPROZA/ALEKSIEWICH/zhensk.txt
- varjag 11y ago
  Be warned, none of her books are light reads. I put a summary in the other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10352263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10352263
smharris65 11y ago
I hope more people will become aware of her book "Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster". A sad witness of a human tragedy. http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Chernobyl-History-Nuclear-Disaster/dp/0312425848 http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Chernobyl-History-Nuclear-Disas...
varjag 11y ago
Her writing is vivid and terrifying. Her _War Does Not Have a Woman's Face_ is at the top of my list of books to unread. It's a collection of accounts from female survivors of WW2 trenches. It is not pushing a feminist narrative in traditional sense (wasn't a thing in USSR) but is haunting in its honesty. Think _Saving Private Ryan_ without the humanistic takeaway. She's a part of Belarusian late 20th century documentary realism tradition, where authors build around authentic, traumatic biographies of the war generation. In literature, Vasil Bykau, her contemporary, even better known domestically. In cinematography, Klimov's _Come and See_ perhaps the most known work.
- vkb 11y ago
  Thank you for the background. I am super-familiar with the Soviet WWII documented experience (Vasiliy Grossman, Ehrenburg, etc. ) but I've embarrassed to say I've never heard of her.
  - varjag 11y ago
    That's hardly surprising: I only read her since am originally from Belarus myself. She's also an outspoken critic of both Lukashenko and Putin, something that doesn't bode well for a Russian language writer at all. I'm happy she gets the wider recognition now.
fsiefken 11y ago
Is it odd that neither the local city library and the university library don't have one of her works (pop. 320k)? She has gotten awards before, so one would think she's more popular. How political is this choice? As a child of two parents who lived through WWII I recognized her sample from the book 'unchildlike stories'/'last witnesses' http://www.alexievich.info/knigi/LastWit_En.pdf http://www.alexievich.info/knigi/LastWit_En.pdf but on her page it seems it has only been translated into japanese and is not available in a language I (or my parents) understand, it's a pity. Another book I would like to read is 'The wonderful deer of the eternal hunt' but that doesn't seem to be ready yet (or abandoned?). In an article about her work from 15 years ago it's mentioned that she has been working on this book for 3 years now and she wants the topic to be part of her work. http://www.tol.org/client/article/8060-a-writer-from-a-cracked-world.html http://www.tol.org/client/article/8060-a-writer-from-a-crack... Fortunately I can order 'Voices from Chernobyl' and 'War Does Not Have a Woman's Face' in paper format (only), just as well as in a way it makes the stories more memorable for me then the dead and cold e-surrogate.
- johansch 11y ago
  The "Swedish Academy" who awards these prices are considered somewhat of a joke here in Sweden. Almost as much as we consider the Norwegian Nobel Committee a joke - remember the embarassingly prematurely awarded Obama nobel peace prize - basically only awarded because the Norwegians wanted to frolick with celebs. They have a very elitist stance - if an author gets popular, no matter how "good" or "bad" he or she is, the prize seemingly cannot be awarded to them. http://www.today.com/id/15210453/ns/today-today_books/t/nobel-prize-literature-goes-who/ http://www.today.com/id/15210453/ns/today-today_books/t/nobe... "A political bias may be hard to prove but there is no doubt the academy favors lesser-known writers to international best sellers. Few outside literary circles had heard of China’s Gao Xingjian, Poland’s Wislawa Szymborska or Kenzaburo Oe of Japan. Gert Fylking, a Swedish radio journalist taunted the academy for a decade by showing up at the award announcement and yelling 'finally' when Engdahl read the winner’s name. After being barred from entering one year, he showed up the next in disguise. 'The point is that 99 percent of the time, the writer who wins the Nobel Prize is completely unknown to the big masses,' Fylking said."

56 points by davidiach 11y ago

I find it interesting that betting houses have gotten the winners right for a few years already. http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/nobel-prize-2015-betting-odds-who-are-literature-peace-physics-favorites-2127359 http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/nobel-prize-2015-betting-odds-w... Something similar to the DraftKings affair maybe, where someone or several someones with insider information are using it for their advantage? She wasn't a dark horse to win though, she's been favored for at least a year now: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/nonfiction-deserves-nobel http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/nonfiction... So it might be a case of a Prediction Game doing right I remember from some years ago the Hollywood Stock Exchange ( www.hsx.com/ ), an online game where people "invested" on movies, was used as a "crowd wisdom" source for decisions on whether to fund movies, etc, and was fairly accurate IIRC. Maybe there's a similar opportunity for other fields? A Startup Stock Exchange game? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Stock_Exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Stock_Exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market

hullo 11y ago
This is actually only the second time in 12 years that the favorite per the Ladbrokes odds has gotten the award, the last being Pamuk in 2006. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123058/who-will-win-nobel-prize-literature http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123058/who-will-win-nobel...
- GFischer 11y ago
  I stand corrected, it seems the Literature nobel prize is very hard to guess correctly, they did find out last year's prize early but it was because of a leak. http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/nobel-prize-in-literature-won-by-french-writer-patrick-modiano-1.2793454 http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/nobel-prize-in-literature-won-by... "Betting on Modiano to win the Nobel surged in the last week, raising questions about a possible leak. David Williams of bookmaker Ladbrokes said Modiano's odds had shortened from 100-1 a few months ago to 10-1 before the announcement." Edit: I still think a "Startup Stock Exchange" could be fun, maybe based on CrunchBase or something :)
  - EvanKelly 11y ago
    I used to mess around on exchangel.co, but mainly I'm interested in placing long bets which just require some patience rather than trading in the artificial market. I think there's another one out there too that does start up trading.
    - GFischer 11y ago
      Thanks! I'll look them up.

guard-of-terra 11y ago

I've never read her but I assume this is where you start: http://lib.ru/NEWPROZA/ALEKSIEWICH/zhensk.txt http://lib.ru/NEWPROZA/ALEKSIEWICH/zhensk.txt

varjag 11y ago
Be warned, none of her books are light reads. I put a summary in the other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10352263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10352263

smharris65 11y ago

I hope more people will become aware of her book "Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster". A sad witness of a human tragedy. http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Chernobyl-History-Nuclear-Disaster/dp/0312425848 http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Chernobyl-History-Nuclear-Disas...

varjag 11y ago

Her writing is vivid and terrifying. Her _War Does Not Have a Woman's Face_ is at the top of my list of books to unread. It's a collection of accounts from female survivors of WW2 trenches. It is not pushing a feminist narrative in traditional sense (wasn't a thing in USSR) but is haunting in its honesty. Think _Saving Private Ryan_ without the humanistic takeaway. She's a part of Belarusian late 20th century documentary realism tradition, where authors build around authentic, traumatic biographies of the war generation. In literature, Vasil Bykau, her contemporary, even better known domestically. In cinematography, Klimov's _Come and See_ perhaps the most known work.

vkb 11y ago
Thank you for the background. I am super-familiar with the Soviet WWII documented experience (Vasiliy Grossman, Ehrenburg, etc. ) but I've embarrassed to say I've never heard of her.
- varjag 11y ago
  That's hardly surprising: I only read her since am originally from Belarus myself. She's also an outspoken critic of both Lukashenko and Putin, something that doesn't bode well for a Russian language writer at all. I'm happy she gets the wider recognition now.

fsiefken 11y ago

Is it odd that neither the local city library and the university library don't have one of her works (pop. 320k)? She has gotten awards before, so one would think she's more popular. How political is this choice? As a child of two parents who lived through WWII I recognized her sample from the book 'unchildlike stories'/'last witnesses' http://www.alexievich.info/knigi/LastWit_En.pdf http://www.alexievich.info/knigi/LastWit_En.pdf but on her page it seems it has only been translated into japanese and is not available in a language I (or my parents) understand, it's a pity. Another book I would like to read is 'The wonderful deer of the eternal hunt' but that doesn't seem to be ready yet (or abandoned?). In an article about her work from 15 years ago it's mentioned that she has been working on this book for 3 years now and she wants the topic to be part of her work. http://www.tol.org/client/article/8060-a-writer-from-a-cracked-world.html http://www.tol.org/client/article/8060-a-writer-from-a-crack... Fortunately I can order 'Voices from Chernobyl' and 'War Does Not Have a Woman's Face' in paper format (only), just as well as in a way it makes the stories more memorable for me then the dead and cold e-surrogate.

johansch 11y ago
The "Swedish Academy" who awards these prices are considered somewhat of a joke here in Sweden. Almost as much as we consider the Norwegian Nobel Committee a joke - remember the embarassingly prematurely awarded Obama nobel peace prize - basically only awarded because the Norwegians wanted to frolick with celebs. They have a very elitist stance - if an author gets popular, no matter how "good" or "bad" he or she is, the prize seemingly cannot be awarded to them. http://www.today.com/id/15210453/ns/today-today_books/t/nobel-prize-literature-goes-who/ http://www.today.com/id/15210453/ns/today-today_books/t/nobe... "A political bias may be hard to prove but there is no doubt the academy favors lesser-known writers to international best sellers. Few outside literary circles had heard of China’s Gao Xingjian, Poland’s Wislawa Szymborska or Kenzaburo Oe of Japan. Gert Fylking, a Swedish radio journalist taunted the academy for a decade by showing up at the award announcement and yelling 'finally' when Engdahl read the winner’s name. After being barred from entering one year, he showed up the next in disguise. 'The point is that 99 percent of the time, the writer who wins the Nobel Prize is completely unknown to the big masses,' Fylking said."