Friday, October 9, 2009

Is US Literature Too Insular?

Herta Mueller, a Romanian born writer, has won the 2009 Nobel prize for literature. There was a bit of an uproar in the US in 2008 over remarks made by then-secretary of the Nobel Prize committee, Horace Engdahl. He commented that the U.S. is too isolated, too insular to win, and that Europe still is the center of the literary world. A lot of people were hoping, or even expecting, that the committee would find a winner outside Europe this year, but that obviously didn't happen.

Here's a pretty good round-up of reactions to the announcement.

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