Author Maya Angelou Long-listed for Nobel Prize in Literature

Maya Angelou delivers inauguration poem, "On the Pulse of Morning," in 1993.
(AP photo release)

The Ladbrokes gambling website, which each year announces its calculated odds for various events, has long-listed celebrated African-American author Maya Angelou with a 100 to 1 chance of winning the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. The official date of the forthcoming prize announcement has not yet been released but it is generally made on the second or third Thursday of October.

 
This news might come as a shock to some not only because of the long-shot odds but because a number of writers across the Internet have fallen into the practice of referring to Angelou as a Nobel Laureate when in fact she has never won the prize. To date, the only African American able to claim that distinction is Toni Morrison, whose novels have also been regular selections for the Oprah Winfrey Book Club and are taught in high schools and universities around the world.

Although Angelou has never received a Nobel, a Pulitzer Prize, or American Book Award, she is nevertheless: an acknowledged presidential inauguration poet (for William Clinton, 1993); the acclaimed author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in addition to other noted memoirs; an honored actress; a celebrated television literary personality; a life-time appointed Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University; and an all-around lionized icon of letters in her own right. In addition, like Morrison, Angelou’s work has been frequently celebrated by Winfrey and the media tycoon has referred to the author as one of her mentors. (Interestingly enough, there are those who champion Winfrey herself as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.)

The Nobel Prize Guessing Game

Ladbrokes PLC, of which Ladbrokes.com is a part, is based in the United Kingdom and is one of the Internet’s leading betting and gaming companies. It specializes in online casinos, financial betting, football betting and other traditional games of chance; however, in recent years it has gotten into the guessing game of who will win the various Nobel Prizes. That point is important because––just to be clear––Ladbrokes is not part of the Swedish Academy that actually selects the Nobel Laureates. They gave last year’s winner of the prize for literature, French novelist JMG Le Clezio, a 14 to 1 chance of winning but have scored a degree of success in other Nobel categories.
 

Collected autobiographies of Nobel contender Maya Angelou.

On this year’s list of some 61 names, Angelou occupies position number 56 and is the only African-American on it that this writer recognized. American authors in general were described last year as unlikely contenders for the prize when jury member Horace Engdhal voiced the opinion that their perspectives were too restricted and they did not “really participate in the big dialogue of literature” on a global scale.

Nevertheless, there are a number of American heavy-weights on the list, including: Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth, who have both been given 7 to 1 odds of winning; Thomas Pynchon, 9 to 1; Don DeLillo, 16 to 1; E.L. Doctorow, 66 to 1; and Cormac McCarthy, 100 to 1. A name that stirred a lot of interest last year and is included again this year is that of the legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, a 25 to 1 contender.

Amos Oz, the Front Runner

With odds of 4 to 1, Israeli novelist and nonfiction writer Amos Oz tops the list of noted contenders. Oz is the author of The Seventh Day, the classic account of the 1967 Six-Day War and of more recent works like: Don’t Call It Night (1996), A Tale of Love and Darkness (2005), and Rhyming Life and Death (2009).

Israeli author and Nobel contender Amos Oz. (Ap photo release)

In her Booklist review of The Amos Oz Reader, Donna Seaman observed, “he writes with great insight about ‘identity and identification.’ Fluent in social matters, Oz finds meaning in the lives of individuals, each a cosmos of pain and love.”

The Nobel Committee for Literature has been known in the past to throw the world a curve by selecting a relatively little-known author for the prize. That means several black men who are not on Ladbrokes’ list but whose world-class writings could prove worthy of the prize, among them: Samuel DeLany, Ben Okri, and Caryl Phillips. It also means that odds against her or not, Angelou could emerge the winner, which is something she already is on many levels.

 
By Aberjhani, the African American Art Examiner and author/co-author of eight books including Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance and ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love.