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Worth reading: Jean-Paul Sarte's reasons for declining the prize when awarded to him in 1964: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1964/dec/17/sartre-on-th

• mcguire 12y ago
  With the recent fluff-up on H.P. Lovecraft and the World Fantasy Awards, that is an interesting read. I particularly like his first reason: "A writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own—that is, the written word. All the honors he may receive expose his readers to a pressure I do not consider desirable. If I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre it is not the same thing as if I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prizewinner." ...especially after Pres. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for simply not being G.W. Bush.