Deep within me, however, was a wondrous joy at receiving this Prize, and I tried to dispel my anxiety by thinking of those who would rejoice at my good fortune. There were my good friends, my brothers and sisters and, first and foremost, my old mother who, sitting back home, was happy to have lived to see this day.
But then I thought of my father and felt a deep sorrow that he should no longer be alive, and that I could not go to him and tell him that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize. I knew that no one would have been happier than he to hear this. Never have I met anyone with his love and respect for the written word and its creators, and I wished that he could have known that the Swedish Academy had bestowed on me this great Prize. Yes, it was a deep sorrow to me that I could not tell him.
Anyone who has ever sat in a train as it rushes through a dark night will know that sometimes there are long minutes when the coaches slide smoothly along without so much as a shudder. All rustle and bustle cease and the sound of the wheels becomes a soothing, peaceful melody. The coaches no longer seem to run on rails and sleepers but glide into space. Well, that is how it was as I sat there and thought how much I should like to see my old father again. So light and soundless was the movement of the train that I could hardly imagine I was on this earth. And so I began to daydream: «Just think, if I were going to meet Father in Paradise! I seem to have heard of such things happening to other people – why, then, not to myself?» The train went gliding on but it had a long way to go yet, and my thoughts raced ahead of it. Father will certainly be sitting in a rocking chair on a veranda, with a garden full of sunshine and flowers and birds in front of him. He will be reading Fritjofs saga, of course, but when he sees me he will put down his book, push his spectacles high up on his forehead, and get up and walk toward me. He will say, «Good day, my daughter, I am very glad to see you», or «Why, you are here, and how are you, my child», just as he always used to do.

Selma Lagerlöf will be remembered for a book she wrote as a primer for elementary schools, now recognised as one of the world’s most charming children’s books: Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (1906) (The Wonderful Adventures of Nils).

Doris Lessing complained to the BBC this week that winning the Nobel Prize for Literature has been “a bloody disaster” to her career as a writer. She told Radio 4’s Front Row program that she has effectively stopped writing under the pressure of media attention: “All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed.” This isn’t a new story: Saul Bellow once described the prize as “a kiss of death,” and several other writers have complained that the prize effectively ended their writing careers.

For a Stone Girl at Sanchi

half asleep on the cold grass
night rain flicking the maples
under a black bowl upside-down
on a flat land
on a wobbling speck
smaller than stars,
space,
the size of a seed,
hollow as bird skulls.
light flies across it
–never is seen.

a big rock weatherd funny,
old tree trunks turnd stone,
split rocks and find clams.
all that time
loving;
two flesh persons changing,
clung to, doorframes
notions, spear-hafts
in a rubble of years.
touching,
this dream pops. it was real:
and it lasted forever.

Gary Snyder

Thanks to The Independent for this news

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American writer and critic Cynthia Ozick has won the $5,000 PEN/Malamud prize for short fiction AND the $20,000 PEN/Nabokov award for “enduring originality and consummate craftsmanship”.
Ozick is known as a “writer’s writer”. Her 2004 novel, Heir to the Glimmering World, was shortlisted for the inaugural Man Booker International prize in 2005.

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No matter what happens in the military there’s always a euphemism for it. But the RAF may have set a semantic record with its description of Prince William’s helicopter landing in a field next to his girlfriend’s house. The mission, it said, “achieved necessary training objectives”.

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The Guardian reports that the actor Wesley Snipes has been sentenced to three years in prison for wilfull tax evasion.
Snipes was cleared of five charges including fraud and conspiracy, but convicted on lesser charges. During the three years he failed to file a tax return, Snipes earned at least $13.8m (£7m), prosecutors alleged, and would be liable for $2.7m in taxes. Snipes claimed he owed only $228,000.

They are really about brand consolidation for beer companies, phone companies, coffee companies and even frozen food companies, she said on the website of the Willesden Herald.

You might have a point there, Zadie. After deciding not to award a prize in this year’s short-story competition, the author said:

Just because this prize has the words Willesden and Zadie hovering by it, does not mean that I or the other judges want to read hundreds of jolly stories of multicultural life on the streets of north London.

In this case I mistakenly believed her acceptance speech was an extended metaphor for the hunger for literature in Africa. Clever in a way because it utilized the word hunger for a region where food shortages often lead to starvation.

And her speech certainly did contain these elements; she speaks movingly and engagingly about Africa, which is, of course, close to her heart.

But the reports I read did not mention her remarks on writing and writers and on the current state of the publishing industry.

On writing:

Writers are often asked, How do you write? With a processor? an electric typewriter? a quill? longhand? But the essential question is, “Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write?” Into that space, which is like a form of listening, of attention, will come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas – inspiration.

And on publishing:

We are in London, one of the big cities. There is a new writer. We, cynically enquire, How are her boobs? Is she good-looking? If this is a man, Charismatic? Handsome? We joke but it is not a joke.
This new find is acclaimed, possibly given a lot of money. The buzzing of paparazzi begins in their poor ears. They are feted, lauded, whisked about the world. Us old ones, who have seen it all, are sorry for this neophyte, who has no idea of what is really happening.
He, she is flattered, pleased.
But ask in a year’s time what he or she is thinking: I’ve heard them: “This is the worst thing that could have happened to me.

These are extracts from her speech. The whole text is available on the Nobel Site in English, Swedish, French and German.

FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL in recognition of the fresh originality and true inspiration of his poetic production, which faithfully reflects the natural scenery and native spirit of his people, and, in addition, his significant work as a Provençal philologist

and

JOSÉ ECHEGARAY Y EIZAGUIRRE in recognition of the numerous and brilliant compositions which, in an individual and original manner, have revived the great traditions of the Spanish drama.

Mistral was from an old and well-to-do family of landowners that had settled in Provence in the sixteenth century. He was deeply influenced by his early years in the leisurely and patriarchal manor of his father.

Echegaray y Eizaguirre was a mathematician, statesman, and the leading Spanish dramatist of the last quarter of the 19th century. He wrote more than 60 plays, which were a mixed bunch, including both enormously popular melodramas lacking verisimilitude of character, motivation, and situation and serious bourgeois dramas of social problems based on a serious study of Ibsen.

1904, then, a very poor year . . .